Terrorism 1,9

State terrorism 3,8

Assam 11
Waqf 7
Indian Mujahidin 8
Right-wing gameplan 5,6,11
Advani 4
Babri 3
Muslim leadership 2
J&K 10
Analysis 11
Special Reports 3,13
Issues 2,12-13
Books 21
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International 16-18
Speaking Out 11
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Community News 14-15
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Our Publications 19
Classifieds 22
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Indian Muslims Leading English Newspaper, published since January 2000
www.milligazette.com
THE MILLI GAZETTE
www.milligazette.com
ISSN 0972-3366
Fort ni ght l y
Rs 10 Vol. 13 No. 17 Issue Serial # 303 1-15 September 24 pages
Inside MG
KASHIF-UL-HUDA
Editor, twocircles.net
I woke up today to find a missed call from a BBC
journalist in India. Talking to him, I found out that
twocircles.net also finds mention in the list of
webpages blocked in India. This surprised me
as we have not published any objectionable arti-
cles or doctored photos of Assam or Myanmar
violence.
In the last few days, Ministry of
Communication & IT of Government of India has
issued several circulars to all Internet service
providers to block certain sites including
youtube videos, facebook pages, and twitter
accounts. Circulars give no reason for the block-
age but simply a directive It has been decided
to immediately block the access to the following
URLs and then list the URLs that it wants
blocked [URL or uniform resource locator, is a
specific character string that constitutes a refer-
ence to an Internet resource].
No one from the Indian government has
reached out to us or asked us to take down the
objectionable content and we will gladly enter-
tain any request from govt., organizations or
even from individuals if there are grounds for
legitimate concern.
Later, thanks to a friend on twitter, I found
out that the main page of our Madhya Pradesh
series that we did a few months ago and whose
banner is on display on top of each TCN page is
not accessible in India. Trying to access it leads
to a page with the message: This site has been
blocked as per instructions from Department of
Telecom (DoT). Very apt for a series whose title
is Unheard and Unspoken.
This is surprising, because everyone
thought that website content has been blocked
because of Assam violence and exodus of peo-
ple of North East India from Bangalore and else-
where. Our Madhya Pradesh series talks about
harassment of Muslims in the state and the
series was done before the latest Assam vio-
lence erupted.
Second TCN page that got blocked (accord-
ing to the documents on Kafila.org) [http://kafi-
la.org/2012/08/23/full-text-the-indian-govern-
ment s-recent -orders-t o-i nt ernet -servi ce-
providers-to-block-websites-webpages-and-
twitter-accounts/] is Petty dispute leads to
death of one in Mathura
[http://twocircles.net/2012aug23/%E2%80%9D
http://twocircles.net/2012jun01/petty_dispute_le
ads_death_one_mathura.html%E2%80%9D].
Granted that there may be some webpages
elsewhere that may be spreading misinforma-
tion but you can challenge rumour by providing
more information, not by trying to block web-
sites. Without going to the root of the problem,
trying to control the violence in Assam or provid-
ing protection to people going back home, India
is using this opportunity to censor legitimate
voices and issues. How else one explains block-
ing of spoof twitter user accounts and TCN sto-
ries that have nothing to do with Assam vio-
lence.
Also, government doesnt understand how
easy it is to copy the information to a new web-
page or to create a new twitter account. They
cannot go on banning the whole internet. For
example, though the series page was banned in
India, individual stories from the series can still
be accessed. Here is the list of the reports in this
series of Unheard & Unspoken: Terror stories
from Madhya Pradesh:
Part 1: SIMI, an excuse to harass Muslims of
Madhya Pradesh
Part 2: A trial of 11 years and counting
Part 3: Muslim youths of Ujjain: Harassed by
police and media
Part 4: Robbing their peace and declaring them
dacoits
Part 5: Iqrar and Habeeb: two different paths to jail
Part 6: Bizarre case of Aamil Parvez
Part 7: Multiple stories of an arrest
Part 8: Destroying their lives when not killing them
in encounters
Part 9: Inside MP prisons, a life of hell awaits
Muslim prisoners
Part 10: Fighting phantoms: The story of Madhya
Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad
Part 11: kise vakil karen, kis se munsifi chahen?
Part 12: Muslim life in Hindu Pradesh
BLOCKED
Unheard & Unspoken terror stories
MG/Yusuf
HASRAT MOHANI...12
A polity based on double standards
India is a secular country with a fine constitution which continues to inspire third world nations. Our
freedom fighters, who made up the first generation of rulers, were fine, secular men and women but
they failed to usher in a system which holds all citizens as equal before the law. Some were more equal
than others. Muslims were robbed of reservation which they already enjoyed pre-Independence.
Muslim and Christian Dalits were barred from the benefits of reservation for SCs by a fraudulent
Presidential Order. A secret circular went out from the home ministry not to recruit Muslims in govern-
ment jobs. Secret orders went out to depopulate Muslims from areas adjoining Pakistan and so
Muslims were driven out of East Punjab, soldiers went from house to house in Mewat and IAF planes
strafed their villages in a bid to drive them out. Awholesale confiscation of Muslim properties followed
in the name of evacuee properties. Migration of one member of a family or even a rumour was enough
to disinherit the rightful owners and the problem continues till this day. AMuslim who went to Pakistan,
but returned weeks or months later, became and remains a Pakistani in his own country to this day
six decades later - while Pakistani Hindus are welcome even today to come to India on tourist visas,
stay back and stealthily get Indian nationality two-three years later. National exchequer is robbed of
trillions of rupees every single year in the name of Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) under which the
salary or income of the family head is divided among all his dependents and in the end he evades
taxes - a special relief for Hindus only. All top jobs in the region of 60-70% are reserved for Brahmins
who alone have a monopoly over merit in our country. One wonders how other countries function
where this species does not exist? RSS works full time and openly to spread communal hatred and
social strife, its cadres and allied outfits, dutifully, at times openly, engage in terrorism and are caught
red-handed yet Muslims alone are terrorists thrown in jails. Chargesheets name Indresh, Togadia and
Hemani Savarkar and many more but they roam free while Muslim youth are arrested on mere suspi-
cion and without any proof the only proof in most cases is the forced confession obtained by torture
and manufactured evidence. Four lakh Assam Muslims are turned into refugees in a clear ethnic
cleansing operation and the case is quickly transformed into an issue of Bangladeshis and intruders.
Northeastern nationals are subjected to sms warfare and told that Muslims will attack you though no
Muslim ever attacked them till date. In no time Guwahati-bound special trains materialised out of
nowhere to ferry them to Assam. On their way home, they assault Muslim co-travellers, kill three by
throwing them out of the train and injure many more. But the ever-vigilant media is silent and failed to
inform people that the victims of the victims were Muslims. Dozens have been arrested in Mumbai in
the wake of an officially sanctioned rally after attacks by unknown criminals outside the venue. Days
later MNS chief Raj Thakeray holds 5-kms long unauthorised procession defying the authorities. No
one dares to arrest him. He is obliged by sacking the Mumbai Police Commissioner who was thought
to be soft on the earlier, authorised, Muslim rally. The same Shiv Saniks have earlier held Mumbai
hostage time and again when they expelled South Indians, Biharis and UP-walas, attacked Muslims
in 1992 and 1993 but no action was ever taken against them. Demolishers of Babri Masjid and killers
of thousands during Ram Mandir agitation did not spend a single day in prisons rather sat in the
North and South Blocks overlording India for years. Killers of Muslims in Assam were allowed to rule
Assam for ten long years. March ahead, trample all in your Hindutva march. Your are ber alles. This
country is yours. Secularism and equality are meaningless foreign words. ZAFARUL-ISLAM KHAN
A picture from TCN reports on MP Terror cases, with a caption : One arrest but six oth-
ers are affected too. Mohd Sajids family struggling to survive in Ujjain. These reports
have so much disturbed the saffron-minded officers of the home ministry that they got it
blocked...No prizes for guessing who supports terrorism in India?
See how Muslims have
harassed and looted
Pakistani Hindus.
We should give them
refuge here.
Fake
Encounter
Partiality
Injustice
Right
wing
threats
RAKHI SAWANT?...4
twocircles.net/Special%20Reports/mp_terror_stories.html
This site has been blocked as per instructions
from Department of Telecom (DOT) .
ISSUES / OPINION
2 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
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Is Assaduddin Owaisi
the only hope for
Indian Muslims? Asks
SHUJAAT BUKHARI,
Editor of Rising
Kashmir
During a recent inter-
action with Muslim youth leaders of his party,
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi
asked them one pertinent question: Why the
community has not been able to produce a
leader of the stature of Indias first Education
Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad? Rahul
was quizzing them as to what were the fac-
tors responsible for not having a Muslim
leader with countrywide character. The young
Muslims who aspire to be a part of policy-
making in India had apparently no answers.
Rahuls quest to know the reasons about
absence of a personality like Maulana Azad
on the political scene is not out of place in the
backdrop of the plight of Muslims in India
today. The community, comprising nearly 20
percent of Indian population, much higher
than many Muslim countries in the world, is
virtually orphaned on the political front. After
Azad, there is hardly a Muslim leader of
national character who could represent them
in the real sense of the term. If it was he in
1950s, there could be many in line who could
be considered Muslim leaders but it is diffi-
cult to place them in the category of one who
could represent the entire Indian Muslim
community.
Rafi Ahmad Kidwai and Ziaur Rehman
Ansari are few odd names but their influence
was limited and they could not emerge as a
voice for the entire community. Similarly the
likes of G M Banatwala and Salahuddin
Owaisi emerged on the political turf but again
with a confined and limited area of influence.
Banatwalas Muslim League was a party con-
fined to fringes of the South and Owaisi,
despite being a hardcore political stalwart,
could not speak for the entire Muslim popula-
tion of India.
It was, however, in 1980s that a name
like Syed Shahabuddin emerged on the
scene. He was not only a seasoned diplomat
but also a sound intellectual with an appeal
that could make him the strong voice of the
community. Though he reached Parliament
yet his voice lost soon after the demolition of
Babri Masjid in 1992. He became the sole
voice of resentment against the demolition of
the Masjid. Unfortunately, he became the vic-
tim of the conspiracies of being branded as
communal and he soon vanished in thin air.
On the other hand, Muslim religious
organisations could not come out of the per-
petual guilt complex of Partition and failed to
give direction to their community. Different
religious schools in India played in the hands
of one or the other political party, thus con-
centrating on short-term interests and sacri-
ficing larger ones. The seminaries across
north India failed to empower the community
both educationally and socially. Their con-
formist attitude left them far behind to be
exploited by fringe elements in the political
set-up. Votes in the name of Muslims were
garnered by leaders of all political parties.
Even Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Ghulam
Nabi Azad, two political stalwarts of Jammu
and Kashmir, contested from Bihar and
Maharashtra and reached Parliament.
Similarly, when Saifuddin Soz was briefly
pushed into political wilderness by his politi-
cal mentors in the National Conference, he
too was offered to contest from a Muslim-
dominated area in India. But he refused and
chose to lose from his traditional constituen-
cy in Baramulla. There are surely 29 Muslim
members in Lok Sabha but hardly any of
them could be considered as a leader who
genuinely represents Muslims not only in
Parliament but in other forums as well.
Take the recent example of the massacre
of Rohingya Muslims in Burma and in Assam.
With India having the second largest Muslim
population in the world, no leader or a body
could force the Indian government to register
its protest with the Burmese government.
Likewise, in Assam all forces were out to shift
the focus to illegal immigration into Assam
from Bangladesh. But if Muslims are solely
responsible for the violence in Assam who
gave 5000 AK 47 rifles to Bodos in Assam,
questions Dr Tasleem Ahmed Rehmani of the
Muslim Political Council. The plight of Indian
Muslims in the camps is pitiable. Parliament
Member Badruddin Ajmal told Outlook maga-
zine that 90 percent of those killed in Assam
were Muslims. But there is no cohesive polit-
ical movement that could safeguard the
humanitarian rights of the people in Assam.
Those occupying the top positions in the gov-
ernment under the quota of being Muslims
have only used that power to further their own
interests. For this huge gap, Congress being
the premier political force in India has also
played a role in discouraging the emergence
of an able leader. This could be seen in the
backdrop of how they felt bitten by a person
like Mohammad Ali Jinnah. However, the
party has largely banked upon Muslim votes
and done nothing substantial for them in
nearly half a century rule it enjoyed in India.
There is, however, only one hope for
Indian Muslims, which can be seen in the
young, articulate and non-compromising
Assaduddin Owaisi. Despite being under
attack from Arnab Goswami for what he
called his irrational statement in Parliament,
Owaisi emerged as the only genuine leader
who voiced his concern in the right perspec-
tive. After visiting 15 relief camps, Owaisi
called upon the nation to be cautious about a
third wave of radicalization of Muslim youth.
He cited Babri Masjid demolition and Gujarat
pogrom as the reasons for two waves that led
to radicalization of youth thus exploited by
what he called anti-national forces. Assams
violence is a case for introspection for the
community leaders who have failed to repre-
sent them, that too in the largest democracy
of the world.
Today, Muslims in India are orphans at
the political level, and they deserve a strong
leadership, which could move towards undo-
ing the injustices brought out by the Sachar
Report and also facilitate their living as proud
Indian citizens. This is the biggest challenge
the leadership faces.
The role of Muslims in the Indian freedom
movement has been profound. Noted
American author Gail Minault maintains in her
book The Khilafat Movement that whether
as individuals or as a community, Muslim
influence on the direction of Indian political
activity was profound during this period. But
the way the community has suffered during
the six decades following Independence is
partly because of lack of genuine leadership
and partly for reasons that Indian polity has
taken a different direction. Wounds of parti-
tion did not have much effect in succeeding
years but after 60 years that situation has
forced the community to live in an atmos-
phere of hope and despair. Violence is no
solution to any form of injustice but they need
many Assaduddins to live like rest of Indians.
(risingkashmir.in)
MG comment:
Mr Rahul Gandhi should have also asked:
why India has failed to produce a person
like Gandhi and Nehru in the post-
Independence era? The fact is that the rul-
ing party/parties consciously crush any
emerging personality and find ways to
send him/her into wilderness. See how
Congress treated Syed Mahmood, or how
the polity treated Dr Faridi and
Shahabuddin or how the Muslim League
trashed Banatwala. Kashmir was expect-
ed to produce an Indian Muslim leader of
national stature but none has emerged
after Shaikh Abdullah. I was present in a
meeting in which former Union minister
and former governor Khurshid Alam Khan
narrated that during a cabinet meeting he
raised a Muslim issue. Indira Gandhi was
enraged and asked him: have Muslims
sent you here? The message is clear: all
Indian political parties from Congress
downwards want a few Muslim show-
pieces to demonstrate to their Muslim vot-
ers that their voice is being heard when, in
reality, it is not. The decadent polity based
on note and vote has created an army of
worthless individuals who project them-
selves as leaders and swarm political
parties offices offering their services on
the cheap. The demoralised Muslim com-
munity too has not risen to the challenge
and forced the polity to accept a Muslim
leader on its terms (Zafarul-Islam Khan).
The Question of Muslim leadership
Tactical Voting
Strategy
I am reluctant to question the wisdom of a great
thinker like Syed Shahabuddin on the tactical voting
strategy of Indian Muslims. Yet, hesitatingly I submit
the following counter views.
I feel that Indian Muslim political scientists should
undertake a more elaborate and deep searching
studies not only on the quantity of political represen-
tation but more importantly on the quality of the
Muslim political leadership. There is a big dichotomy
here.
We may achieve the quantity of say 10 to 15%
Muslim members of Parliament but what would be the
outcome if 90% of them are naam-ke-waaste
Muslims, bearing Muslim names but strictly following
the dictates of their non-Muslim masters (at times
woefully atheistic and/or parochially fanatical) and
would be willing to sell their conscience to hold on to
their seats after spending or bribing a few
lakhs/crores to win the elections, expecting to reap
financial gain out of their positions.
Syed Shahabuddin says, Muslim legislators
(and Parliament members) will be under pressure to
raise matters of Muslim interest and projects, their
feelings and aspiration. One of the greatest
tragedies that caused so much of communal tension,
deaths, violence and destruction was the demolition
of Babri Masjid in 1992. It happened during the reign
of the so-called Muslim appeasing party, Congress. I
am unable to recollect statistics on the number of
Muslim ministers and Parliament members in 1992.
My question is: did any (based on the principle of
Islam first) Muslim minister/parliamentarian resign in
protest against this terrorist evil that was covertly sup-
ported by the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao?
Why didnt they do it? Because, toeing the party line,
appeasing their party bosses, continuing to avail
financial advantages was much more important than
the priorities of the Ummah.
If only the Muslim parliamentarians, had regard-
less of party affiliations resigned en masse, they
would have created a powerful new political awaken-
ing and a positive revival.
A few years back in the Tamil Nadu state legisla-
tive assembly, a bill was introduced to prevent reli-
gious conversion by the AIADMK Government. To the
surprise of the entire Muslim population of Tamil
Nadu, the most forceful speech supporting the bill
was given by the sole Muslim minister, K. Raja
Mohamed. He shamelessly demonstrated his
absolute loyalty to his political mentor and proudly
displayed his weak iman. His friends know that he is
regularly present for Eid prayers. It is true that many
Muslim politicians of his ilk behave like chameleons in
order to be in the good books of their earthly bosses.
Now the issue is: what is the point of having a
greater number of Muslim parliamentarians and leg-
islators if they do not have strong Islamic convictions,
but are ready to sell their iman for a trifle worldly gain.
As well we have a fewer of them who are bold
enough to forcefully and effectively present the true
grievances of the Muslim Ummah, within and without
the Houses, prepared to fight and die for the commu-
nity that reposed its trust in them. Hence I beg to dif-
fer from the views of Syed Shahabuddin
PA MOHAMED AMEEN
Chennai
Today, Muslims in India are orphans at the political level, and they
deserve a strong leadership, which could move towards undoing the injus-
tices brought out by the Sachar Report and also facilitate their living as
proud Indian citizens. This is the biggest challenge the leadership faces.
The role of Muslims in the Indian freedom movement has been profound.
Noted American author Gail Minault maintains in her book The Khilafat
Movement that whether as individuals or as a community, Muslim influ-
ence on the direction of Indian political activity was profound during this
period. But the way the community has suffered during the six decades fol-
lowing Independence is partly because of lack of genuine leadership and
partly for reasons that Indian polity has taken a different direction.
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 3
NATIONAL
Lucknow: Tariq Qasmi, an accused in the U.P. courts
bomb blasts who is lodged in the high security barrack
of Lucknow district jail, has accused that jail authori-
ties are treating him like an animal. Food is thrown to
him as if he was an animal. He is not provided clean
water either. Under the guise of checking his cell, he
is frequently disturbed and his small belongings are
ransacked. Even his bag was ripped apart during one
such exercise.
Qasmi informed his lawyer, Advocate Muhammad
Shoaib about these instances of ill-treatment and
asked him to initiate legal action against the jail
authorities.
Said Advocate Shoaib, jail authorities misbe-
haved with Qasmi and others initially but later started
behaving according to the jail manual. Now, since
Samajwadi government has hinted that these
accused may be freed, jail authorities have started
misbehaving with them again.
Aurangzeb built Babri,
claims former police
officer
A soon-to-be-released book by a BJP loyalist and for-
mer IPS officer Kishore Kunal seeks to prove that the
naming of the Ayodhya mosque after Babar was a
Shia conspiracy and it was Aurangzeb who built the
mosque, razing a temple. In the book, titled
Ayodhya Rediscovered, Kunal writes, Babars
name being dragged into the demolition of Ram tem-
ple, and construction of the mosque, was a handiwork
of Shia clerics who wanted the possession of the
mosque after Aurangzeb, an avowed Sunni, who had
demolished the temple and erected a mosque. The
Shia clerics forged inscriptions and associated the
mosque with Babar, thats how it became Babri
Masjid, claims Kunal who has played a decisive role
in the VHP legal battle to usurp the mosque site.
Kunal claims that Shia clerics who couldnt get
possession of the mosque for a century after it was
built by Aurangzeb, were now able to do so under the
new, Shia leadership of Awadh, claiming historical
facts have been falsely and misleadingly interpreted.
It was in 1810 when some clerics invented an inscrip-
tion and predated construction of the mosque to the
period of Babar and Mir Baqi as the real builder, who
has been claimed as Shia, writes Kunal. It is clear
that this new finding by a staunch Ram Temple cru-
sader is inconsistent with the decades-old Hindutva
claim that Babur had ordered the construction using
the remains of the temple. The mosque, built in 1527
CE, is constructed in the Tughlaq style.
Kunal refrained from enlightening the masses
earlier since he was an Officer on Special Duty in the
Ayodhya Cell of the Union Home Ministry on the Babri
Masjid issue. He quit the Gujarat-cadre in 2001 to
focus on matters of Hindu religious importance and
currently heads the Bihar State Religious Board.
Israeli ex-soldiers
holidaying in Goa are
dehumanized: Goa church
In an open letter of solidarity addressed to the
Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre and Kairos in
Palestine, the Council of Social Justice and Peace
(CSJP), a social arm of the influential Catholic Church
in Goa, Father Maverick Fernandes expressed con-
cern over the dehumanization of Israeli youngsters as
a result of the mandatory three-year army service.
Pointing towards ignominious acts committed
publicly around places in Goa, the CSJP said, Our
study revealed how dehumanised these young peo-
ple had become and how, because of an oppressive
and cruel system of illegal military occupation, even
the victimisers had turned casualties and victims of
their own cruelties.
The findings were part of a three-year long
research which resulted into a 96 page-book titled
Claiming the right to say no: A study of Israeli tourist
behaviour and patterns in Goa.
ASJ reprimands Special
Cell officers
New Delhi: A Delhi district court acquitted six persons
in a fake currency case owing to violation of estab-
lished protocols by the Special Cell during the inves-
tigation of the case.
The Special Cell staff also failed to inform the
court about which law governed them, the same one
as the Delhi Police or a separate one. It turned out
that they had to follow Punjab Police Rules.
The Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ), Pawan
Jain observed that such lapses unnecessarily supply
ammunition to the defence to raise a finger over the
entire investigation.
The acquittal was triggered by the accuseds
counsel pointing out that records of arrival and depar-
ture of the raids had not been maintained by the
Special Cell.
The court directed that a copy of the order be sent
to the Police Commissioner for issuance of directions
to the Special Cell to follow the law governing the
entire Delhi Police, for greater transparency and
impartiality in investigation.
The court, commenting on the inability of the Cell
to get independent witnesses, said that a lack of inde-
pendent and reliable persons for investigation could
be overcome if Cell officials made sincere efforts.
Send troops at once
during communal riots:
MHA
Failure of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to quickly
deploy troops in the affected districts in Assam has
caused the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to formal-
ly write to the MoD citing relevant laws where the
state administration can request commanders of army
units deployed in their respective areas to send per-
sonnel in case of communal clashes. The army
authorities, when contacted by the local authorities in
Assam, awaited an MoD nod to intervene in view of
precedents of use of the army in civilian situations
unnecessarily. The four-day delay led to the escala-
tion in violence with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi blam-
ing the MoD, and even the MHA, for sending in the
paramilitary personnel late.
Indian academics slam
India-Israel research MoU
New Delhi: A memorandum of understanding (MoU)
was signed by University Grants Commission
Chairman, Ved Prakash, and Chairman of the Israel
Science Foundation Benjamin Geiger. The pro-
gramme, which will run for five years and involves
approximately 50 collaborations, will provide support
upto $100,000 a research project for three years. The
programme was initiated during HRD minister Kapil
Sibals trip to Israel.
A group of Indian academicians, who are part of
the International Campaign for the Academic and
Cultural Boycott of Israel (INCACBI), has opposed the
move citing Israels violation of the foundational prin-
ciples of academic freedom and cultural contacts of
the people of Palestine and its war crimes. According
to the group, this partnership, together with many oth-
ers, lends a stamp of approval to Israels policies of
apartheid and colonialism.
Television ratings fudged
says NDTV, files suit in
New York court
In a 194-page lawsuit, NDTV has appealed to the
New York Supreme Court to have Nielsen, Kantar and
TAM India pay it $810 million in compensation for
advertising revenue loss due to the firms fudging of
ratings over the past eight years. It wants another
$580 million for negligence of Nielsen and Kantar offi-
cials.
TAM, Nielsen and Kantars India partner measure
audience preferences from its Peoplemeter gadget
installed in viewers homes. With 8,000 sample
homes, NDTV pointed out, the sample audience is
extremely low to accurately gauge viewership in a
large and diverse country like India where out of the
samples, less than 500 would account for homes
watching English news channels.
In a controversy surrounding TAM, a whistleblow-
er called The Consultant made it known to NDTV in
January 2012 that confidential information and
addresses of the sample viewers were leaked and the
ratings could be manipulated by paying a bribe of
$500 per household to influence ratings in a required
target group. The lawsuit mentions that TAM officials
had approached NDTV in April 2012 with an offer to
manipulate their ratings as the ratings heavily influ-
ence corporate advertising, making a sizeable chunk
of broadcasting revenue.
AALIA KHAN
Tariq Qasmi ill-treated in jail
Quote, Unquote
Consider the hysteria that set in when Abu Jindal, Lashkar-e-Taiba handler of the 26/11
Mumbai terrorist attacks, was brought back to India. The media frenzy, the excited stu-
dio discussions, the huge stories in newspapers, all of them quoting sources.
Whoever these sources are, the fact is that a great deal of what has come out follow-
ing his arrest is stuff that not only does not help the country but may even compromise
some of its information-gathering systems. How Abu Jindal was traced in Saudi Arabia,
for example, the phone intercepts and other means, is not exactly helpful to Indian
intelligence agencies.
BHASKAR GHOSE Frontline
American taxpayers fund 20%-25% of Israels defense budget, with the Jewish
state being the largest recipient by far of American aid since World War II....the United
States has cast 40 vetoes to protect Israel in the UN Security Council...Washington
doesnt support Israel because of the Jewish states democracy, because of the
Holocaust or out of respect for human rights. Americas interest in Israels strategic
value has always been the primary motivation for US support...Israel must remember
that she is Americas ally and client, not its friend.
GIULIO MEOTTI The Jerusalem Post
White Paper on Terrorism:
calling out readers and
researchers
The most important and burning issue facing Indian Muslims at present is the con-
tinuing arrests and widespread fake implication of our youth in trumped up terror
cases masterminded by saffron elements in the government, IB and Police. Now
almost all Muslim organisations are up in arms against this state terror. People are
organising dharnas, meetings, conference etc all over the country.
As a long-term solution and serious response to this problem thrust upon us,
All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM) has decided to bring out a white
paper on the Muslim-related terrorism in the country. This was discussed and
passed during the Working Committee meeting on 7 July. But since AIMMM does
not have the required funds and staff, I have undertaken the responsibility of
preparing this white paper which will be comprehensive in around 600+ large for-
mat pages covering the whole history and genesis, communalism, vested inter-
ests in various fields, analysis of various laws like TADA, POTA and UAPA, fake
encounters, acquittals, IB & Police role, media attitude, case studies, statewise
studies, SIMI and so-called Indian Mujahidin, Hindutva terror, individual
tragedies of victims, Azamgarh, Bhatkal, Malegaon, Darbhanga modules, some
basic documents, etc.
The target is to bring it out during the next six months and release it in a big
convention at Delhi as a combined effort of all Muslim organisations, and there-
after present the white paper to politicians, media, human rights orgs, especially
those abroad, in order to enlighten public opinion as well as to build pressure on
our blind and deaf government.
The estimated cost of this white paper is Rs 25 lakh divided as follows: Rs 10
lakh cost of preparation and payments to contributors plus six months salaries to
three persons including an expert; Rs 10 lakh for designing and printing the doc-
ument in a world-class format; and Rs 5 lakh convention costs. The first two con-
cern the undersigned while the last (convention) concerns AIMMM.
To finance this effort which will be a watershed in this struggle against state
terrorism in India, I need and solicit your full support. This may be either by direct
contribution for the effort or by buying copies in advance which could later be sent
to you or to others at your behalf. The estimated price of the white paper is Rs
2000 at least. Our well-wishers can pay Rs 1000 only per copy as advance pur-
chase (plus any actual postal or courier charges which will be indicated and
payable later). Payments for the copies may be made to our publishing company
(Pharos Media & Publishing Pvt Ltd, D-84 Abul Fazal Enclave-I, Jamia Nagar,
New Delhi 110 025 - Email: books@pharosmedia.com). Individuals and organisa-
tions ordering a minimum of 100 copies will be included as sponsors of the White
Paper. Contribution towards the organisation of the convention may be sent to the
All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, D-250 Abul Fazal Enclave, part 1, Jamia
Nagar, New Delhi 110 025.
Experts who can contribute to this white paper may kindly write to me
with some detail about their past experience and work.
ZAFARUL-ISLAM KHAN (Editor, The Milli Gazette - edit@milligazette.com)
Forum for Release of Imprisoned
Innocent terrorists
Lucknow: Aatankwaad kay Naam pe Qayd Nirdoshiyon ka Rihaai Manch condemned
the charging of Azamgarhs Bada Sajid in the Pune blast case, saying this was a
shameful expression of the defence agencies communal bias towards Muslims.
People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) state secretary Masihuddin Sanjari and Tariq
Shafeeq said that this was an attempt to discredit Azamgarh.
The Forums convener, advocate Muhammad Shoaib, human rights activists
Shahnawaz Alam and Rajiv Yadav said that its common knowledge that the Pune
bombs went off/were found in one Patils bag but the Mumbai ATS refuses to even con-
sider him as a suspect. The ATS first claimed that the blast was a handiwork of mis-
chief-makers, in an attempt to shield the person carrying the bomb. They observed
that the Mumbai ATS had turned a blind eye to the possible role of Hindtva groups in
the Pune blasts. The leaders demanded a high level enquiry into the links between
Mumbai ATS and Hindutva terror organizations and said that the ATS, aided by certain
media groups, has named Bada Sajid in order to help Patil and the Hindutva groups.
They cited the incident of the innocent Faiz Usmani who was taken away for inter-
rogation and subjected to third-degree torture leading to his death under custody.
Compare it to Patils case, where he wasnt even considered a suspect even after a
bomb was found in his bag. According to them, it proves that under Rakesh Marias
leadership, the Maharashtra ATS works in tandem with saffron terror outfits, thereby
exposing the countrys security to risks. They went on to add that if that relationship is
in fact probed, it will unravel the mysteries of many other blasts apart from the latest
one at Pune. The leaders asserted that the Pune blasts were an attempt to divert pub-
lic attention away from the ATSs role in the mysterious custodial murder of Qateel
Siddiqui in Yervada jail.
NATIONAL
4 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
Plight of Vrindavan widows
A year after reports first emerged of the plight of widows, main-
ly from U. P., Odisha and West Bengal, abandoned by their fam-
ilies and left at Vrindavan ashrams, Sulabh International was
chosen by the Supreme Court to provide help to these women.
The women were paid a one-time sum of Rs. 500 and a daily
grant of Rs. 25 for food was promised. While 1,789 women in
the four government-run ashrams benefitted, efforts are being
made to provide health and shelter facilities for the others.
The women survive on a pittance earned by performing
bhajans and keertans in the Vrindavan temples. Younger wid-
ows are often made a part of the sevadasi system and are
exploited by priests and pilgrims. Due to lack of basic necessi-
ties and no one to claim the dead, their last rites are completed
shockingly by giving their bodies to sweepers to chop them up,
stuff them into jute bags which are then thrown into the river.
It is sad that the state governments needed prodding from
the Supreme Court to fulfill their basic responsibilities in accor-
dance with the Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act of
2007. The series of events were set in motion when the
National Legal Services Authority acted on a media report.
Sulabh International is currently in talks with the Central
and the state governments as well as corporate houses to help
better the situation. An electric crematorium will be set-up with
Sulabh International and the local authorities coming together to
raise funds for it.
Over 2 lakh children disappeared within three years...
New Delhi: During the last three years, 215,028 children disap-
peared in 35 states and Union territories across the country. Out
of these, 64,050 remain untraceable. According to the National
Record Bureau (NRB), 68,227 children disappeared in 2009,
while 77,133 children disappeared in 2010, and 59,668 children
went missing in 2011. According to the NRB figures, 18,166 chil-
dren could not be traced out of those who disappeared in 2009,
22,236 could not be traced out of those who went missing in
2010 while 22,648 remain untraced out of the children who went
missing in 2011. According to these figures, Maharashtra, West
Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi top the list with over 5,000
missing children each year.
...12-13 children go missing daily in the national capital
New Delhi: According to the National Crime Report, 12 to 13
children on average go missing every single day in the national
capital. These children are taken to places at a distance of 50-
100 kms from Delhi to do child labour. Most children disappear
from South Delhi, especially from Sangam Vihar. They are
taken to Gurgaon, Sonipat and Meerut for child labour and other
illegal activities.
Former Congress leaders sons starve to death
Shiv Kumar Singhs two disabled sons, aged 25 and 28, died of
hunger in Jharkhands Ramgarh block. Mr. Shiv Kumar Singh
informed the Block Development Officer in writing that his sons
died as they had been mentally and physically very weak. They
went without food for the last ten days prior to their death.
Amitabh Kaushal, the District Commissioner said, We were
informed about the condition of the family, and we provided it
each month with foodgrains, but as they were all very weak and
there was none to prepare food for them, they suffered. He has
since formed a committee to probe the deaths. However, there
is not much hope about getting the complete picture as the bod-
ies were cremated without post-mortem examination.
The family has been engulfed by diseases ever since
Mr. Singh lost his high-profile job eight years ago. Mr. Singh suf-
fers from cancer of the jaw and Mrs. Singh from cardiac prob-
lems apart from economic hardships. Mr Singh was earlier
associated with the Sirka colliery union and lost his job eight
years ago after allegations of financial irregularities were lev-
elled against him. The allegations were dropped after an
enquiry but he never got back his job.
Banned ammonium nitrate abundant in open market
An investigation by a Delhi daily reveals that the chemical is
available in illegal markets in the outskirts of the Capital. The
3500 tonnes available to sellers sources from the 1% spillage at
the Vishakhapatnam Port Trust where it is legally imported from
Russia for manufacture of fertilizers. Even though the sub-
stance is considered an explosive, reports had surfaced that the
rest 99%s storage and sale had been unmonitored too.
This brings to mind the May 20, 2010 Maoist hijacking of a
Raipur-bound load of 16 tonnes in the Bastar region in
Chhattisgarh and other similar consignments going missing in
the Maoist heartland.
The government of India had added it to the Explosives Act
of 1884 after a series of blast in Bangalore, Ahmedabad,
Jaipur,Varanasi, Mumbai and Pune.
Compiled by AALIYA KHAN
SAMAR
samaranarya@gmail.com
You should write a
political marsia for
L. K. Advani, sug-
gested a friend of
mine A political mar-
sia, he repeated,
Arabic for elegy, a
dirge or a funeral
song. I was stunned
and uncertain. This was an uncertainty
caused by not knowing what shocked me
more: the request of writing one for some-
one whose ideas and deeds I find sicken-
ing, or with the term itself as one does
not, generally, talk badly of someone who
has already gone.
He has not retired yet, was all that I
could manage as a response. He gets all
over the news every once in a while, was
my feeble follow-up volley. So does Rakhi
Sawant, pat came the retort. Does it make
her a good actress, or a name to reckon
with in whatever else she does? If not, then
how does Advanis being in news, every
once in a while, make him any better?
L. K. Advani was, once, a toughie, he
continued, a rabble-rouser who stirred the
passions of impoverished masses and
never thought twice about letting them
loose on equally, or, often more, impover-
ished ones.
Creating chaos came naturally to him.
It was bound to. He came from that part of
pre-partition India that is now Pakistan, the
land of chaos, after all. Being born in
Karachi in those communally charged
times was reason enough in itself to
become a fanatic, and then this one joined
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
that fountainhead of sectarian hatred.
What else can you expect of someone
born out of such a heady, explosive con-
coction?...And, yet, he was political unlike
many of his protgs.
Hearing this from my friend, who has
despised the man and his party as much
as I do, was a shocker. His rath-yatra left a
trail of blood and gore perhaps worse than
the one Narendra Modi orchestrated and
administered on Muslim minorities in his
state in 2002. Yet, my friend continued,
almost condescendingly ignoring the dis-
belief written all over my face.
The man has a politics, however
regressive, but still politics. With all his
active support to the politics of violence, it
was never the end for him, he noted. The
end was something more sinister, yet
something far less violent, in terms of
physical violence that is. It is the only thing
that explains his later acceptability in the
National Democratic Alliance.
No doubt, NDA was very hesitant,
unlike the insiders treatment that Atal
Behari Vajpayee got. Yet, he was not
loathed, as Narendra Modi was by the likes
of Nitish Kumar. Why? Because, he had a
politics unlike the later ones, who believed
in violence for the sake of violence, and
engaged in massacres for the sake of mas-
sacres.
Now, being the last politician standing,
amongst the thugs espousing Hindutva in
the country, he deserves a political obitu-
ary, doesnt he? was the question put to
me.
I
made the blunder of switching the televi-
sion on. Gosh, there he was. Shouting
and apologizing alternatively... This
Advani, will he ever retire? It was the first
question to commemorate this unwanted
intrusion. What he is up to now, was the
second one. Rapid fire rants continued
with an assertion: He must have said
something dirty and then taken it back,
apologizing.
This was bang on target, as we were to
learn later. The veteran, toughie that he
once was, has shot himself in the foot, yet
again. And, that too, on a day he was sup-
posed to lead BJPs charge against a gov-
ernment already cornered inside and out-
side parliament. It was a perfect setting, a
perfect launch pad for the agitators come-
back.
The government was under one of the
most vicious attacks it has ever endured
since the 2G days. With several of his
deadlines for bringing the black money
back expiring unattended, Baba Ramdev
had decided to march to the Parliament.
Ramdev, one has to concede, for his pet
cause, had got the address of black money
right. Unlike Team Anna, he had quite a
few supporters cheering him. Adding to the
woes of government was the popular
anger against the regimes failure to arrest
the violence in Assam, a state ruled by
Congress itself.
Advani messed it all up. He started
with the roar of a lion, calling UPA illegiti-
mate, and soon ended up in a meow,
explaining what he had meant and what he
had not. The aggression followed by the
hasty retreat had achieved something as
rare as Sonia Gandhi leading the counter-
attack from the front. Additionally, it was
not a reluctant defense, like the one she
had to put after the no-holds-barred misog-
ynist attack on her person by Pramod
Mahajan, when he compared her to
Monika Lewinski!
As an aside: misogyny is hardwired
into the very structure of RSS/BJP, in fact,
and keeps oozing out of the statements of
its tallest leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee,
who once taunted Sonia Gandhi for being
a widow as if she chose it...
Judging by his statements, Advani
comes up, surprisingly, as less of a misog-
ynist than many members of his partly,
including Sushma Swaraj of the I-will-live-
like-a-widow-if-Sonia-becomes-Prime-
Minister fame. But, that is, counting his
speeches and not his worldview, of course.
Returning to Advanis meow: Sonia
sprang into a thunderous rebuttal on the
allegation of illegitimacy, terming it as an
insult to the electorate. This was a lighten-
ing assault, pushing the veteran on the
back-foot. With the counter-attack,
premised on insult of the mandate, Advani
found himself fumbling. He had managed
to add yet another feather to his cap: that
of making another non-performer perform
quite like Indian bowlers are notorious for
doing: providing immense opportunities for
out of form batsmen to score centuries and
find form.
This follows Advanis miraculous feat
of bringing the best ever statement, out of
the otherwise always do-nothing-say-noth-
ing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who
has dubbed him Permanent Prime
Minister in waiting.
Advanis meow had an interesting out-
come. It was now the BJP in a totally
defensive mode, on a day the pain should
have been that of the Congress. The
Congress party had survived yet another
day that it should not have and did not
deserve to; and the credit went not to its
worthless fire-fighter, but the general of the
opposition camp. The glee on the faces in
Congress camp was for all to see, as was
the gloom in the BJP benches.
Ominously, for him and his party, this
was not the first time Advani had commit-
ted a self-goal. He seems to have put in a
lot of effort to become an expert at self-
goals. Even the apology to Sonia was
nothing new. He had done the same earli-
er. He had, on an earlier occasion, named
Sonia Gandhi as one who has stashed
black money in tax havens abroad, only to
retreat into an apology as soon as Sonia
hit back. He has done it at Mohammad Ali
Jinnahs mausoleum, calling him secular,
and, in the process, unwittingly taken a lit-
tle venom out of his partys tireless cam-
paign against minorities.
He has done it on his blog, predicting
the ascent to power of a non-Congress-
non-NDA alliance in the 2014 polls, and
invited the wrath of the ever-vitriolic Bal
Thackeray. As if calling him a losing gen-
eral was not enough, Thackeray rubbed
salt onto his wounds by offering his
learned counsel to clear Advanis doubts
and boost his morale. Think of the gravity
of a Hindutva minnow teaching its chief
architect. One can feel the pain this insult
must have caused Advani.
Advani, evidently, has lost the plot.
Worse, even for him, is that he has no clue
where or that he has lost it in the first place.
The politics he has decided to be part of
stands defeated by the very ones he has
handpicked as his successors, especially
Narendra Modi, the chosen one. No one
stands for the ideals i. e. if you can call a
belief in subjugating women, dalits, minori-
ties and all others as ideals - he has so
painstakingly tried to inflict on the body-
politic of the nation. He does not find a
taker of his idea of a Hindu nation in his
own party, though there are a thousand
squabbling for the coveted post of the
Prime Minister, which has eluded him all
along.
He is a defeated man defeated, not
by the enemy, but by his own self-goals
and the realities of his own camp defeat-
ed, not by a realization about how ven-
omous the politics he has espoused all his
life was, but, by all the sex, sleaze, and
subversions his heirs use to make it suc-
ceed. He might have been political, as my
friend suggests, but his politics was a
regressive and reprehensible one. His
rath, the chariot he rode to power, has left
a trail of blood behind it.
That he did not pay the price, but
enjoyed the power that emanated out of all
the blood on his hands is a failure of the
system we live in, and not his success. He
might have never been convicted.
Yet, his role in causing all that mayhem
is clear to me. He was responsible for
1990. And for 2002.
He might have lost his personal battle.
The poison he has infused in the veins of
nation is yet to be purged. It is going to be
a hard task, but, I would much rather be
part of that.
Let him live with this ignominious
defeat of his. I will never write a marsia,
political or otherwise for him. Period.
(http://thevois.co.in/magazine/)
Fall of the fanatic: Is Advani the new
Rakhi Sawant of Indian politics?
Advani, evidently, has lost the plot. Worse, even for him, is
that he has no clue where or that he has lost it in the first place.
The politics he has decided to be part of stands defeated by the
very ones he has handpicked as his successors, especially
Narendra Modi, the chosen one. No one stands for the ideals i.
e. if you can call a belief in subjugating women, dalits, minorities
and all others as ideals - he has so painstakingly tried to inflict
on the body-politic of the nation....
That he did not pay the price, but enjoyed the power that
emanated out of all the blood on his hands is a failure of the
system we live in, and not his success. He might have never
been convicted.
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 5
NATIONAL
AMARESH MISRA
Before joining the Times of India in 1993 as a roving correspon-
dent, I was part of the radical Left movement led then by the CPI-
ML (Liberation). However, sufferings of Dalits, Adivasis and the
working classes-natural Left constituencies-did not contribute to
my early, personal radicalization. Still a student leader in the
Allahabad University, I took active part in debates, discussions
concerning national and international topics-and agitations main-
ly-on student issues.
In 1984, the day Prime Minister Indira Gandhi got assassi-
nated, I was in Calcutta. I had gone there to take part in the
national conference of the Indian Peoples Front-the only attempt
of its kind-of a Communist Party sponsoring a democratic-peo-
ples party in India-made under the leadership of late Comrade
Vinod Mishra-the then general secretary of the CPI-ML
(Liberation).
Since I was also part of an agit-prop Street Theatre group-
the Dasta Natya Manch (DNM)-we were performing a play on
Calcutta streets-when the situation rapidly deteriorated after the
news of Ms. Gandhis assassination. We were told to run and
hide as Police vans were coming our way for a total clampdown
on any movement on foot or tyres. Yet, after about half an hour,
I saw a mob attacking a Sikh truck driver. After a while, the driv-
er was on the streets, begging for his life. Thrashed mercilessly
by the mob, the Sikh was soon burned to death, a tyre hanging
around his neck. The Police were nowhere in sight.
Back then, I was only 18 years of age; the incident trauma-
tized me so deeply that after I got back to Allahabad I fought with
everyone-including my close relatives-who-as per the norm
those days-were abusing Sikhs incessantly.
For several days, I was unable to sleep; I was full of rage; it
is good that I did not have access to a gun-I would certainly have
used it on some right-wing, communal/anti-Sikh element in
Allahabad.
I am expressing my inner most urges to make a point-that
during desperate/unjust times-a sensitive human being-belong-
ing to the majority community-can be driven to anti-right-wing
violence. Being a ruling class Brahmin-whose family had pro-
tected Muslims during the 1947 riots-and who took any violence
against minorities as a challenge to his sense of honour direct-
ly-also must have contributed a lot to my aggressive stance.
So, imagine the plight/mindset of minority communities who
saw unspeakable crimes-raping of daughters and mauling of
children-being committed on their kith and kin.
Then in 1986-communal Police officers of the Uttar Pradesh
Police-unleashed massive State-sponsored violence even on
respectable Allahabadi Muslim citizens like the Delhi-based jour-
nalist Zafar Agha who was working at the time for India Today, a
prestigious weekly. In the 1980s, much before the Ram Mandir
movement, communal/right-wing forces used the Police and the
Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) to butcher
Muslims in Meerut, Muzffarnagar and Aligarh.
Slowly, I began realizing that in India-sometimes-one can
survive-even thrive-as an upper caste Naxalite. But it was impos-
sible to lead a life with dignity as a member of a minority commu-
nity.
The Babari Masjid was pulled down in 1992; as narrated by
several Mumbai cops openly-and included in the Srikrishna
Commission Report-Muslim children were given milk laced with
poison-by Mumbai Police officials themselves-who were sup-
posed to protect them. I have narrated the terrifying tale of 4th
degree torture on Muslims-perpetrated by senior Mumbai Police
officers during in the post-1993 Mumbai blast phase-in a recent
article (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/the-mainstream-
maverick/entry/pune-blasts-the-story-behind-the-story).
By the time I learned about the 2002 Gujarat genocide and
the brutal, daylight killing and burning of Ehsan Jafri in
Ahmedabad, I had already realized that unless a revolution
shakes the system in India, minorities are destined to live as sec-
ond class citizens.
There was some hope when Congress came to power in
2004 on a strong anti-communal plank. Manmohan Singh, while
assuming the office of Prime Minister in 2004, promised an end
to the divisive era of communal conflagrations seen in the 1990s.
During the years of the UPA I regime, violence against
Christians in Orissa and elsewhere made national headlines
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_Orissa#Dece
mber_2007). To me, it became obvious that had the Maoists-
most of them upper caste Hindus of Orissa like Sabyasachi
Panda-not intervened to beat back Bajrang Dal-RSS-VHP
activists and leaders-Orissa would have witnessed several more
Graham Staines-type murder cases.
Things came to a head in 2008. With just an year left before
Parliamentary elections in 2009, bomb blasts began rocking
Indian cities with alarming frequency. Security agencies and
Police forces of different states blamed an unknown outfit-the
Indian Mujahideen (IM)-for the blasts. From July to September
2008-in a span of just three months-more than 100 blasts-killing
innumerable men, women and children-tested the patience of
Hindus and Muslims-to the outermost limit.
The electronic media began playing the breaking news
card after 2008 blasts. Hundreds of Muslims too died in 2008
incidents. But instant media trials-which earned media houses
the rap of the Supreme Court-blamed Muslims-and Muslims
alone-for the blasts. Imagine the kind of anger Muslims and
Hindus must have felt against each other back then; so, whoev-
er was behind the 2008 blasts, isnt it obvious that the detona-
tions constituted part of a conspiracy to divide the nation along
communal lines for someone to achieve power in 2009? We
have only two national parties. Who would benefit more-
Congress or BJP-in a communally surcharged electoral atmos-
phere is anybodys guess.
Further on, 19th September 2008 saw the Delhi Police
Special Cell gunning down two Muslim youths in the now infa-
mous Batla House encounter; October 2008 saw blasts in
Malegaon and several other places. Then almost by divine inter-
vention-Hemant Karkare-the then Maharashtra ATS Chief-
brought out, for the first time in the history of post-Independence
India, concrete proof of Sangh Parivar involvement in bomb
blasts.
With this one act, Hemant Karkare foiled the entire game-
plan to communalize the polity. Perhaps, because of this reason,
Karkare along with Kaamte and Salskar, was killed mysteriously
during the 26/11 terror attack. At the time of his assassination,
Hemant Karkare was close to implicating top RSS-BJP leaders
in terror acts (http://rivr.sulekha.com/amaresh-misra-exposes-
headley-us-cia-israeli-mossad-ib-rss-role-in-26-11-mumbai-
atrocity_470519_blog).
After all, the name of Indresh Kumar, a top-ranking RSS
leader, did crop up as a perpetrator in the Samjhauta Express
blast case (http://www.milligazette.com/news/562-rss-leader-
indresh-kumar-paid-for-samjhauta-blast-terror).
On hindsight, Karkares martyrdom halted the dangerous,
communalization of Indian politics that would have brought BJP
to power for sure in 2009.
In 2012, the first thing that came to my mind when I heard of
the violence in Assam was that communal/right-wing forces had
begun their game of preparing for 2014 Parliamentary elections.
But 2012 is not 2008. In the 1960s and 1970s, communal
riots between rival mobs used to be the norm. 1980s were home
to the Police vs Muslims/Sikhs/minorities syndrome. Bomb blasts
planted by Muslim perpetrators replaced the old type commu-
nal conflagrations in the 1990s and 2000s.
But after the 2008 exposure of Sangh Parivar terrorism, the
efficacy of bomb blasts achieving communal polarization
became doubtful.
So, this time around, it seems that ethnic riots with a commu-
nal slant-between minorities-are replacing bomb blasts. Instead
of a minority-majority clash, the gameplan seems to be of pitting
one minority against the other. This explains the way Bodo mili-
tants-belonging to an ethnic minority group-first attacked Bengali
Muslims-a religious minority. Then an issue of Bangladeshi infil-
trators was quickly inserted in the script by the Sangh Parivar.
Soon doctored images of violence on Muslims, pamphlets,
SMSes mushroomed out of nowhere-and before one could gath-
er ones wits-a Muslim backlash was seen, first in Pune,
Mumbai and Karnataka. Then, Allahabad, Lucknow and Kanpur
saw mild protests and violence.
Lucknow violence happened in front of me on 17th August
2012. I happened to be in the city for some personal work. In the
afternoon, I went into the town to meet some Muslim friends. My
friends were coming out of the Teelewali Masjid in the heart of
Lucknow city after the Friday Namaz when stones started flying-
one hit a friend of mine on the head. Suddenly, the cry of Bajrang
Dal activists on the prowl went up. Though incidents in Assam
and Burma were being avidly discussed, Muslims who went to
the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha on 17th August 2012 to protest
actually wanted to voice their anger against stone-pelting by
Bajrang Dal activists. Not a single newspaper wrote about what
I saw...
In Allahabad, Muslim community leaders had cancelled the
scheduled protest on 17th August. The Lucknow pattern was
repeated-Muslims coming out after rendering the all-important
Juma (Friday) ki Namaz in old Allahabad-were provoked by
Bajrang Dal activists.
On 11th August in Mumbai, the initial violence occurred when
MNS activists taunted Muslim youths for sitting idle after Assam
and Burma incidents. Not many people are aware of the fact that
till recently, Raj Thackareys MNS had a lot of Muslim activists as
well.
I
n Mumbai, after the initial flare-up, some professional ele-
ments-revealed to me by Mumbai Police sources as being
under contract (supari) to create violence on 11th August 2012-
to defame Muslims-took over. They were the ones who beat up
the Police and molested women constables. I was surprised
when I saw comments on the Net by some noted secular-social
activists condemning Mumbai violence without taking into
account genuine Muslim grievances or probing the criminal-
mafia-supari angle.
The North-East exodus began from Pune and Bangalore,
Karnataka. The infiltration in Pune by RSS-ISI-Mossad type ele-
ments is well-known in Maharashtra Police circles. In fact, three
Muslims-Sarfaraz, Imran Khan and Arif-have been arrested by
the Pune Police for sending fake SMSes. According to the Pune
Police, Imran received the SMS from Sarfaraz, the former then
forwarded the same to Arif. Now while Imran Khan runs a small
business, Arif sells CDs. But-here is the best part-the Police are
unwilling to reveal anything about Sarfaraz!
In the light of Qateel Siddiquis murder inside Punes high
security Yerawada jail, the framing of several Muslim youths of
the city in terror cases by the Maharashtra ATS headed by
Rakesh Maria-a known Muslim baiter-Maharashtra Police
sources claim that the attack on students of the North-East-and
the circulation of SMSes-might have been the work of some
Muslim youths who actually are Police informers. Now Sarfaraz
is saying that one Kanjeel Sheikh of Ahmednagar forwarded the
SMSes to him!
A front-page report in Indian Express, published on 22nd
August 2012, quotes the Karnataka Police as saying that Anees
Pasha, a cell-phone repairman, might have sent the inflammato-
ry SMSes that led to the exodus of North East students from the
state.
Now, who is Anees Pasha? The Indian Express report goes
on to report that Police sources (Karnataka) said that Pasha is
a highly skilled cell-phone repairman...Police had often sought
his assistance in retrieving software data during their investiga-
tions in the past!
Isnt this shocking? How come Muslims arrested in terror
cases turn out to be either Police informers or collaborators? RK
Singh, Indias Home Secretary, talked of a Pakistani hand in the
circulation of SMSes; is Anees Pasha a Pakistani? If yes, then
how was he working for the Karnataka Police? As the charge-
sheet filed by the Maharashtra ATS against Col. Purohit and oth-
ers accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts shows, is there really
a connection between ISI and the RSS?
Again, only an impartial investigation can reveal the true pic-
ture. But, it is apparent that as the 2014 elections draw closer,
the cycle of violence will only increase. Tens of thousands of
Muslim and Hindu men, women and children-belonging to the
poorer/lower middle classes-or ethnic/religious minorities-will be
sacrificed like proverbial lambs. Communal/right-wing forces-
backed by foreign agencies (not just ISI)-have a high-do or die-
kind of stake in 2014. Any definitive secular government-even of
the Third Front type-is alien to their interests. They will stop at
nothing to achieve power. A fascist government under Narendra
Modi following widespread anarchy-and the killing of minorities
by minorities-form part of their grand scheme of things.
This time, perhaps, even divine intervention will not be able
to save India.
Minorities vs Minorities:
The New Right-Wing Gameplan for 2014
The electronic media began playing the breaking news card after 2008 blasts. Hundreds of
Muslims too died in 2008 incidents. But instant media trials-which earned media houses the rap
of the Supreme Court-blamed Muslims-and Muslims alone-for the blasts. Imagine the kind of
anger Muslims and Hindus must have felt against each other back then; so, whoever was
behind the 2008 blasts, isnt it obvious that the detonations constituted part of a conspiracy to
divide the nation along communal lines for someone to achieve power in 2009? We have only
two national parties. Who would benefit more-Congress or BJP-in a communally surcharged
electoral atmosphere is anybodys guess.
it is apparent that as the 2014 elections draw closer, the cycle of violence will only increase.
Tens of thousands of Muslim and Hindu men, women and children-belonging to the
poorer/lower middle classes-or ethnic/religious minorities-will be sacrificed like proverbial
lambs. Communal/right-wing forces-backed by foreign agencies (not just ISI)-have a high-do or
die-kind of stake in 2014. Any definitive secular government-even of the Third Front type-is
alien to their interests. They will stop at nothing to achieve power.
NATIONAL
6 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
RAM PUNIYANI
ram.puniyani@gmail.com
Pakistan and India, these
two neighbours, got
Independence in mid-
August 1947. Today 65
years after Independence,
where do these two major
countries of the
Subcontinent stand vis--
vis their religious minorities, is the question
which we need to answer to ensure a better and
more democratic area.
On August 11, 2012, over 50000 people,
mainly Muslims, assembled in Azad Maidan to
protest against the ill-treatment of Muslims in
Assam and Myanmar. After some speeches full
of provocation and after display of some
provocative posters, a section turned violent
and vented its ire against the media for not cov-
ering the plight of Assams Muslims displaced in
the July violence involving Bodos and Muslims.
Needless to say, in Assam violence nearly 80
people have been killed and over 4 lakh people,
mostly Muslims, have been displaced right
under the nose of the Congress-ruled govern-
ment. The Azad Maidan mob burned a few OB
vans. The mob also attacked the police.
Humiliated-molested female police personnel
and beat up other police personnel. While con-
trolling the violence the police did the firing,
which lead to the death of two young men. In
the whole scuffle many a police personnel was
injured. Now, the Raza Academy, the organiser,
has issued an apology saying the meeting was
infiltrated by provocateurs. Still the organisers
cannot shun their responsibility for this whole
tragedy. The protest has always to be on demo-
cratic lines, non-violent and the speeches in
meetings have to be moderate. Hate speech
and inciting mobs is not excusable on any con-
dition.
In the same week news came that nearly
300 Hindus have crossed over into India from
Pakistan. Ostensibly, they have come here for
pilgrimage but some of them have stated that
they will not go back as they dont feel safe in
Pakistan. Most of these Hindus are from Sind
and Baluchistan. There are reports of abduction
and forced conversion of Hindu girls there and
the religious minorities have to lead a life of sec-
ond class citizens. The religious minorities per-
secuted in Pakistan are not just Hindus. Sikhs
and Christians and Shias and Ahmadiyas, a
sect of Islam, too are persecuted.
Where do we find ourselves today nearly
six decades down the line after we committed
ourselves to democracy and secular principles?
India came into being as a secular democratic
state and even Pakistan. which was formed in
the name of Islam for the Muslim majority areas
of British India, began with secular principles as
enunciated in the oft-quoted 11th August 1947
speech of Qaed-e-Azam Jinnah. In that speech,
he had said that the state has nothing to do with
the citizens religion, people are free to go to
their mosques, temples and churches or what-
ever, as it is their personal matter. He also said
that the white colour in the Pakistani flag repre-
sents minorities. Still the logic of communalism
was built-in in the whole system. One can make
a secular speech but the social base which had
resulted in the formation of Pakistan, the one
consisting of feudal elements was intact. Mere
secular speeches dont change the social reali-
ty.
Communalism caught up in Pakistan in due
course of time and in the late seventies, with
Ziaul Haq at the helm, mullahs came to the fore-
front. The Mullah-Military complex backed up by
the United States, which had a substantial say
in the affairs of Pakistan, violated every letter
and the core spirit of the speech of Mr. Jinnah to
the extent that today even Shias and
Ahmadiyas are as much victims of religious
intolerance and it is getting reflected in their
political status in the country.
India with Gandhi and Nehru as the major
pillars of shaping the values of Indian national
movement, were unshakable in their commit-
ment to secularism. Gandhi, the devout Hindu
and Nehru the atheist, had the vision of a state
totally committed to respecting the people of all
religious denominations, while keeping a dis-
tance from those trying to bring in matters relat-
ed to faith in the ambit of the policies of the
state. Nehru, while doing this, realized two
major handicaps. One that, while our constitu-
tion is secular, the society is in the grip of reli-
giosity, so he found this as an obstacle in the full
implementation of secular policies. The second
flaw he found was that in his party, which was
founded on the grounds of secular values, has
been infiltrated by communal elements. There
was no one to heed to his warning, and in due
course many an action of some Congress lead-
ers were indistinguishable from those of the
communal elements, those forcing the country
in the direction of religious nationalism.
The health of democracy in any country has
to be gauged by the extent of security and equi-
ty minorities enjoy in the country. Through com-
plicated mechanisms, the influence of commu-
nal elements has risen exponentially, especially
during the last three decades.
The whole trajectory of these two countries
has been very different. While in Pakistan, there
was always a space for communalism to creep
in comfortably, the task of communal politics
became simpler with the country falling in the
grip of military dictatorships time and again. The
US intervention and American policies in
Afghanistan, in particular, added fuel to this fire.
In India, the opportunism and fallacies of
the electoral system (based on first past the
pole), the rising anxiety of sections of society,
the successful effort of communal forces to
inject the fear of small minorities into the minds
of the big majority and politics around emotive
issues like Ram Temple completed the picture.
Today, while Muslims are 13.8% in population,
their percentage amongst victims of violence is
90%. Today, they are standing at the bottom of
socio-economic indices. Sachar Committee has
demonstrated this fact beyond any shadow of
doubt.
In Pakistan, the percentage of Hindu
minorities has declined over time and their
security and social status is abominable. The
injustices on minorities in one country are no
justification for heaping of injustices on some
other minorities in another country. The reac-
tionary communalism is used by political forces
in their own ways. The communal forces in India
look at the Hindus emigrating from Pakistan and
the Assam violence as an attack on Hindus. To
some people in Pakistan, the atrocities against
Muslims in India provide a handle to further
intimidate the Hindus there. In response to the
Babri demolition, many a temple were razed to
dust in Pakistan.
All said and done, there is a gross contrast
between the situation in Pakistan and India.
Despite setbacks, the secular democratic val-
ues remain the bedrock of the Indian system,
though compromised during recent decades. In
Pakistan, on the other hand, democracy has
enjoyed a marginal value all along. There are
efforts to root democracy in Pakistan but the
obstacles are immense. The common factor is
the suffering of minorities though the degree of
suffering is different in both these countries.
Where will all this lead us to? The commu-
nal issue is a big brake on the social develop-
ment of the two countries. The values of affirma-
tive action for weaker sections of society, the
going an extra mile to protect them and to bring
them up in social area, is what is needed in both
the countries.
Sixty five years after coming out from the
yoke of colonialism, it is time we remembered
the values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the
principles which guided our freedom movement.
In India, there is an urgent need to reform our
electoral system to reflect our social and politi-
cal needs. Communal violence and discrimina-
tion against minorities is at the cost of immense
loss to our national ethos and humanism. Now
is the time to check it and reaffirm in practice
those values which made us India, home of all
religions and races. It is imperative for Pakistan
to revert to the values outlined in the speech of
Qaid-e Azam on 11th August 1947. Decline in
the percentage of minorities and their continued
exodus from Pakistan is a great insult to the
founder of Pakistan. (Issues in Secular Politics)
Status of Minorities: a tale of two neighbours
Despite setbacks, the secular democratic values remain
the bedrock of the Indian system, though compromised
during recent decades. In Pakistan, on the other hand,
democracy has enjoyed a marginal value all along. There
are efforts to root democracy in Pakistan but the obsta-
cles are immense. The common factor is the suffering of
minorities though the degree of suffering is different in
both these countries.
FIRDAUS AHMED
The cat is out of the bag. The gameplan of extremists subscrib-
ing to cultural nationalism, Hindutva, is so simple, as to make
them appear simple minded. Alternatively, they think others are
simple minded; else they could not have been so transparently
deceptive.
The game plan is one of deception. This has been well known
among those watching them over the past half a decade at least.
In the run up to the last elections, when they suffered under the
delusion of regaining power, they conducted a bombing cam-
paign against metros - Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Bangalore,
Hyderabad, Mumbai etc.
The tell-tale signs they left behind were stark - if only the blind
will take a look. Take the inexplicable recovery of bombs in Surat
for instance. Their more brazen use of disguise and
Chaplinesque efforts at terror elsewhere are too well-known to
recount. The case of raising the Pakistani flag in Hubli is a mild
example. Their strategy was to make it look to the gullible media
as though this was handiwork of the Indian Mujahedeen, IM. The
organization was itself a useful invention to serve their ends.
This did not help them in winning the elections, but it did
throw many off their scent. They succeeded to the extent of man-
ufacturing a constituency that believes that terrorism perpetrated
by Muslim extremists is a graver threat. Using this as a spring
board, they have started off their campaign for New Delhi 2014.
Their latest series of actions, bespeaks of a similar, if more ambi-
tious, gameplan.
They took advantage of the social media-induced collective
reaction by the minority to the happenings in Assam. While the
doctored images of atrocities from the east have been spread by
sources of equally extreme persuasion in Pakistan, as claimed by
the Union home secretary, there is ambiguity surrounding the ori-
gin of threat messages to north-easterners. It is taken by default
as originating from Muslim sources. However, that these could
well have their dubious parentage cannot be discounted.
The advantages that accrue for them are legion. They get to
paint the minority, already on the defensive, into a corner. They
manage to give an ethnic conflict an all-India communal colour,
thereby heightening the perception of threat of the Muslim Other
that they have so studiously manufactured over the past decade.
They can keep the government on the backfoot, one that is
already under pressure on multiple fronts including the political
fight with the opposition baying against crony capitalism.
How have they exposed themselves? Firstly, the RSS was
too sprightly in cashing in on the SMS episode. They were all over
TV screens on railway platforms out to defend the North Eastern
citizens fleeing the southern capital where the BJP rules.
Secondly, the bomb blasts that fizzled out in Pune are another
give away. As the Pune police let on, these were the handiwork
of mischief makers. Surely, this was a sign of exultation on the
departure of the Union home minister. Third, the infiltration by
agents provocateurs of the mass solidarity gathering in Azad
Maidan on 11 August in the hope that police over-reaction would
lead to a bloodbath, can be spotted in their belatedly ruing the
polices uncharacteristic but praiseworthy professional handling
of the situation. Lastly, the encounter deaths in Batla House ear-
lier and the custodial murder of Qateel Siddiqui, have helped
clean up their tracks. The case on the bomb blasts can safely be
closed in public memory with the perpetrators eliminated.
The government is surely not oblivious. It is, however, too
much on the ropes to be able to launch a counter-attack. The rul-
ing party does not have the political resources for turning back
the tide of deception-induced, media-fanned suspicion of the
minority. It also cannot take the extremists head on since it would
damage Indias diplomatic position that Pakistan is at the root of
all of Indias ills. Therefore, it is not the success of the majoritari-
an extremists as much as the governments weakness that is
keeping this costly charade going.
If the government is not going to do its job and the Hindutva-
inspired extremists are going to keep up their momentum, there
is little for those targeted to do than to keep their fingers pointed
at the culprits. This is an effort to such an end. Doing so is nec-
essary lest 7 Race Course Road be usurped and the idea of
India subverted come 2014. There is no question of going silent-
ly into gas chambers.
But, more consequentially, the Qur'anic injunction of excel all
in good works makes more sense, since the mud that they sling
will then simply not stick.
The author blogs at
subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in
The unfolding gameplan of majoritarian extremists
The majoritarian extremists
succeeded to the extent of
manufacturing a constituency that
believes that terrorism perpetrated by
Muslim extremists is a graver threat.
GoI cannot take the extremists head
on since it would damage Indias
diplomatic position that Pakistan is at
the root of all of Indias ills.
Therefore, it is not the success of the
majoritarian extremists as much as
the governments weakness that is
keeping this costly charade going.
NHRC takes seven
years to file report on
encounter
New Delhi: Delhi police had killed Faisal
Siddiqui in Delhis Usmanpur area on
2 February 2005. Many doubted that encounter
and considered it a premeditated murder.
Movement for Empowerment of Muslim Indians
(MOEMIN) filed a complaint with the NHRC on
23 September 2005 and it took the apex rights
panel seven years to reply to this complaint.
The NHRC reply is a verbatim repetition of
the police version which says that two persons
of the Alisher gang came to the park in front of
MCD flats. On being cordoned off by a police
party, the duo made an attempt to flee. An
exchange of fire ensued in which Siddiqui was
killed. The NHRC has accepted in toto the
report filed by the DCP Vigilance on
8 September 2009.
Navaid Hamid, general secretary of
MOEMIN, expressed his dismay with the NHRC
working. He said this panel has failed and it
should be merged into the Delhi police.
MG NEWS DESK
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 7
NATIONAL
SYED ZAFAR MAHMOOD
The Waqf Bill 2010 is again before the union Ministry of Minority
Affairs under the Rajya Sabha mandate that, in the light of the
Select Committee recommendations, it should be amended and
placed afresh before the Parliament. According to the internal
reports, the Minorities Affairs Ministry, having done its job, has
since forwarded the revised draft Bill to the Ministry of Law. Now
again the future of half a million Waqf properties belonging to six-
teen crore Indian Muslims is languishing in the files of half a dozen
bureaucrats of these two ministries: back to square one. The ideal
situation would be that the Government, instead of secretly guard-
ing what all it is going to do with the Waqf properties, brings it in
the open before the community and its well-wishers, countrywide
debate be held on each item of the amended draft of the Bill and
then the revised Bill is presented to the Parliament.
Invite and value Muslim opinion on Waqf Bill
Currently, both of these ministries are presided over by the same
Minister. Therefore, there should be complete consistency in the
approach of both the ministries as per the broad UPA policy
towards the Muslims. The Minister needs to invest a lot of quality
time on the Waqf Bill. He needs to have first hand information of
the recommendations of JPC, Sachar Committee and the Select
Committee about the various aspects of Awqaf. He must make
himself personally aware of how the bureaucracy has been react-
ing to each of them and the strength or weakness of the justifica-
tions, if at all given, for these reactions. After he has satisfied him-
self with such groundwork, he should post the duly documented
information on the website of the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
Thereafter it should be notified that any comments thereupon
should be emailed on a given address within a period of six
weeks. Such feedback should be carefully reviewed by the
Ministry. A second comparative chart should be prepared showing
what were the comments & suggestions made by the Muslim com-
munity and their well-wishers, how the Ministry reacts towards
these and what are the justifications behind such reactions. The
Minister is expected to once again carefully analyze these and
take a final view thereupon. This document too should be posted
on the website of the Ministry. Only then the amended Bill should
be taken forward to be re-tabled in the Parliament.
14 JPC/Sachar recommendations still not considered
The UPA is about to conclude its second innings. This is the time
when the Government should go a step forward to restore to the
deprived community its due. It must conspicuously appear that the
Government is not leaving any stone unturned in order to preserve
the Waqf endowments against ruin and ensure their consolidation
and development. An impression should not go round that the
community is struggling to retrieve and protect its Awqaf but, for
that, the Government lacks credibility in their eyes. Here it must be
borne in mind that in our secular constitutional system the man-
agement of Awqaf is not the States prioritized responsibility.
Rather, the Waqf law was enacted as the State wanted to proac-
tively help Muslims by making the management of their religious
endowments effective and duly enriched in order to better serve
the purpose of community welfare. The management of
Gurudwaras and Churches and similar endowments of other reli-
gious minorities are effectively out of the Government control.
However, the Waqf properties are ultimately under the
Government command whereas these too could have been
declared as an internal matter of the Muslim community requiring
no Government intervention. But, the Waqf properties are so large
in number that these better be managed through a national law.
Nonetheless, its never acceptable that any provision of the Waqf
law goes against the interests and wishes of Muslims. Therefore,
shrouding the proposed amendments in secrecy tantamounts to
undue intrusion in the internal affairs of Muslims. Twenty recom-
mendations of the JPC on Waqfs and Justice Sachar Committee
were not included in the Waqf Bill 2010. Hence, the Rajya Sabha
referred the Bill to the Select Committee which submitted its report
in December 2011. However, fourteen recommendations made by
the JPC and Justice Sachar Committee remained uncommented
even in the Select Committees Report. The story goes that due to
lack of time and ready expertise with the members, counter-com-
ments to the objections raised by the officers of the Ministries of
Minority Affairs and Law could not be prepared in time.
13-Member Select Committee versus 30-Member JPC
Also, the Select Committee comprised only 13 Rajya Sabha mem-
bers while the JPC had 30 members both from Lok Sabha and
Rajya Sabha. Reason defies the Governments attitude: give
some consideration to the recommendations made by the Select
Committee but mostly ignore the recommendations made by the
JPC without giving any reasons. Doesnt this amount to breach of
Parliaments privilege and contempt?
No need to rush up with half-baked Bill
There is no need to somehow rush up the re-tabling of the amend-
ed Bill. The JPC Report was submitted in 2008 and Justice Sachar
Committee Report in 2006. Four to six years have elapsed. If it
takes a few months more heavens will not fall. On the other hand,
if the amended Waqf Bill also goes against the Muslim interests, the
community would consider this mistake as intentional and would
find it difficult to politically forgive the ruling combine. However, if the
proposed draft of the amended Bill is openly brought before the
Muslim community, and the community and its well-wishers get an
opportunity to discuss its contents and the revised draft duly
accommodates the communitys points of view and after that the
amended Waqf Bill is re-tabled, then the community will treat the
Government as its impartial well-wisher. Due to lack of space here,
only a couple of crucial issues are being highlighted regarding the
Bill. For details, the readers may please access www.wakfwatch.in.
Tackle acute shortage of Muslim bureaucrats
The JPC on Waqfs and the Sachar Committee both noted in their
reports that generally senior Muslim officers are not posted as Chief
Executive Officers in the 28 State Waqf Boards of the country -
because Muslims comprise less than 2.5% of the bureaucrats of
the country despite their national population being 13.4% as per
Census. Therefore, non-bureaucrats - having no defined level in
the Government hierarchy - are most often appointed as CEOs;
and, consequently, their existence is contemptuously brushed
aside by the bureaucracy. In some rare cases an officer is given
additional charge as CEO of Waqf Board. In either case, the Waqf
administration remains under perpetual sufferance. Therefore, two
recommendations were made. Firstly, the Waqf Board CEO should
be of bureaucratic rank not below the Director to the State
Government. Partly accepting this recommendation, the
Government wrote in the Waqf Bill 2010 that the CEO shall be at
least of the rank of Deputy Secretary to the State Government. And,
if an officer of such rank is not available among the Muslim bureau-
crats in the State Government, still the CEO must be at least of the
level of Under Secretary to the State Government. Even through
this watered down implementation of the vital recommendation, at
last, Muslims do stand to gain something rather than nothing.
But, another significant issue relating to this matter is that when
Muslims comprise even less than 2.5% of the officers of the coun-
try, then how is it possible to garner dozens of Muslims to be post-
ed as provincial Waqf CEOs - every third year or so? Therefore, the
Sachar Committee made the second important recommendation:
There should be a separate cadre of Waqf officers (may be named
as Indian Waqf Service). However, a Deputy Secretary of the union
Ministry of Minority Affairs, Sri Virendra Singh, did not like this and
- with a stroke of his pen on the Ministrys file - brushed aside this
well-researched proposal in 2007. Nobody senior to him raised a
question. This led to the communitys country-wide agitation; details
can be googled. However, the current chairman and members of
the National Commission for Minorities provided a healing touch
and came to the communitys rescue. The Commission resolved
and wrote to the Ministry of Minority Affairs and to the Prime
Minister that a separate cadre of officers must be established for
the management of Waqf affairs. The Ministry of Minority Affairs has
once again raised some apprehensions which are being addressed
by the Commission. These letters and related documentation can
be accessed at www.zakatindia.org under the icon: Waqf.
Prescribe minimum rank of Secretary, CWC
In the Waqf Act there is no mention of necessary qualifications for
the post of Secretary to the Central Waqf Council and his essential
level in the bureaucracy of the Government of India. That is the rea-
son why he does not carry necessary clout in the Government cir-
cles and this surely harms the interests of Waqfs. In order to plug
this lacuna, the Sachar Committee recommended that an officer of
the rank of at least Joint Secretary to the Government of India
should be appointed as Secretary, CWC. The union cabinet
approved this proposal. Nonetheless, no statutory steps have so far
been taken to implement it. In response to a RTI query, the Ministry
of Minority Affairs simply stated that the procedure to appoint the
Secretary, CWC is prescribed in the Central Waqf Council Rules,
1998. However, what all one finds written there [Rule 7(1)] is that
the Minster can appoint any Muslim as Secretary, whomsoever he
chooses. That is the reason why the Sachar Committee recom-
mended that the CWC Secretary must be an officer at least of the
rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India. This significant
recommendation is still awaiting implementation.
Waqfs under ASI control
Under the Ancient Monuments and Archeological Sites and
Remains Act 1958, the Archeological Survey of India has the
power to declare any monument, site or building older than 100
years, to be of national importance. The Waqf properties are not
exempt from this law. At the same time, it is the ASIs statutory
responsibility to provide protection and maintenance to the proper-
ties that are so taken under its control and custody. The Waqf prop-
erties which are not adequately protected and maintained by the
ASI must be released back [Section 17(b)]. The Sachar Committee
had recommended that the ASI and the CWC should hold joint
meetings every three months to review the situation. This propos-
al was accepted by the Government of India. The minutes of the
ASI-CWC meetings are available at www.wakfwatch.org and
www.zakatindia.org. The mill requires the grist. The Central Waqf
Council will have to collect information from the State Waqf Boards
about the status of all those Waqf properties which are under the
ASI control. There are a large number of properties which are not
being properly protected and maintained by the ASI, and as a result
they are easily slipping away under encroachment. The CWC
should give a list of such properties to the ASI during each meet-
ing and impress upon it the vitality of their release from ASI control.
Then, in compliance of the respective Waqf deeds, these proper-
ties should be managed and taken care of under the supervision of
the respective State Wakf Boards.
We, the well-wishers of the Awqaf - too need to undertake
some soul-searching. Are we doing our bit ? Lets rise to a higher,
spiritual orbit of our existence and mull over Rumis poser: Does
any potter ever make a pitcher only for the sake of the pitcher, and
not for water?
Hech koozah-gar kunad koozah shitaab?
Bahre aine koozah, nay bar boo-e aab?
Waqf legislation: community welfare
or stereotype officialdom?
The ideal situation would be that the Government, instead of secretly guarding what all it is
going to do with the Waqf properties, brings it in the open before the community and its well
wishers, country wide debate be held on each item of the amended draft of the Bill and then the
revised Bill is presented to the Parliament.
Bad weather friends: Sikhs invite
Muslims to offer namaz in temple
New Delhi: Muslim residents of Joshimath in Uttarakhand
offered Eid namaz on 20 August in a gurdwara (Sikh temple),
after being invited in by its head priest. There is no mosque or
idgah in Joshimath, a town perched above the Alakhnanda deep
in the Garhwal Himalayas. Usually its 800-odd Muslim residents
offer namaaz at the towns Gandhi Maidan, a public ground.
On Eid day, however, Gandhi maidan had turned into slush.
It had been raining heavily for several days and Eid day too
dawned in a downpour. The Muslim community was struggling
with the problem when the head of the local gurdwara sent a
heart-warming message to them: Muslims could use the main
hall of the gurdwara for offering namaz.
So, at 9:30am, the congregation of Muslims in bright new
clothes trooped down to the gurdwara and offered the ritual
prayers in the big hall. After the ceremony, they embraced the
Sikh community members waiting outside the hall. Some
Hindus from the town were present too and offered greetings to
the other two communities.
Sardar Buta Singh, Prabandhak of the gurdwara, later told
mediapersons that he had extended the invitation to the
Muslims to help them in their crisis. Maulvi Asif was quoted by
media as saying that by solving their problem, the gurdwara
committee had presented an example of humanity and respect
towards all religions. He said that the Muslim community was
thankful to the committee.(Subodh Varma, TNN, 22 August
2012)
Bill for separate status to Sikhism
New Delhi: After the amendment of the Anand Marriage Act for
separate registration of Sikh marriages, the community is now
setting its eyes on amendment of the Constitution to recognise
Sikhism as a full-fledged religion. At present, Article 25 of the
Constitution of India describes Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism
as parts of the Hindu religion. Sikhs have long been seeking
amendment to this Article to grant Sikhism an independent iden-
tity under the law. In a significant move, Lok Sabha Speaker
Meira Kumar on 23 August allowed Shiromani Akali Dals
Khadoor Sahib member Rattan Singh Ajnalas private member
Bill to amend Article 25 of the Constitution to meet the commu-
nitys pressing demand. The Bill titled Constitution Amendment
Bill 2012 seeks to drop Explanation II in Article 25, which, while
guaranteeing a right to freely profess, practice and propagate
religion, defines Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism as compo-
nents of the Hindu religion.
The statement of object and reasons behind Ajnalas private
member Bill wants Explanation II dropped and says, The draft-
ing of sub clause (b) of Clause 2 of Article 25 tends to ignore the
separate and distinct identities of Sikh, Jain and Buddhist reli-
gions. Rather, it shows that these religions are either part of the
Hindu religion or associated with it. This has resulted in avoid-
able confusion across the world about the independent identity
of these three religions. This Bill proposes to amend Article 25
with a view to distinctively refer to Sikh, Jain and Buddhist reli-
gions along with Hindu religion. The Bill also refers to the rec-
ommendation to amend Article 25 along similar lines made by
the National Commission on Review of the Constitution headed
by former Chief Justice of India Justice MN Venkatachaliah dur-
ing the NDA regime. The Bill at hand is a constitutional amend-
ment Bill and the second major bill moved as a private bill by
Sikh MPs. The Anand Karaj Amendment Act was earlier moved
as a private members Bill in Rajya Sabha by former MP
Tarlochan Singh.
NATIONAL
8 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
New Delhi: Indian Mujahidin (IM) is a fictitious organisa-
tion most possibly created by the Indian Intelligence Bureau
to justify the repression and terrorisation of the Indian
Muslim community in the name of fighting terror. Apart from
a few emails sent at the time of some bomb blasts, it has no
real or tangible existence outside Intelligence Bureau and
Police claims which are lapped by their stenos in the media.
India has a free and fearless press but when it comes to the
issue of terrorism it becomes ultra-nationalist and devel-
ops cold feet and starts parroting the secret notes pushed
by faceless security agency officials.
Just as the huge nationwide saffron terror network was
slightly exposed by Maharshtra ATS chief Hemand Karkare,
the faceless Indian Mujahidin appeared on the scene
through an email sent by Guru Al Hindi to some media
organisations on 23 Nov. 2007. It was sent from a cybercafe
in Ghaziabad near Delhi. Its Hindu owner, a local Congress
leader, went unscathed.
At first, the Union home ministry did not ban it and kept
saying as reported by the Kolkata Telegraph weeks before
the ban, that it cannot ban something it does not know.
Then, suddenly, on 4 June, 2010 it together with all its for-
mations and front organisations was banned under the
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 as the 35th
banned organisation in India and still retains that number on
the home ministry website but without any further clarifica-
tion as to why it was banned and what is the basis of the
ban. The claim parroted by the Indian media is that it is a
shadow outfit of the banned SIMI and Pakistan-based
Lashker-e-Toiba. It is claimed the IM is involved in serial
bomb blasts in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bangalore and
Mumbai. It is claimed that this terror group is at present
headed by Iqbal Bhatkal who remains at large.
Following India, many foreign countries including US
and UK too banned IM. MG editor Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan
sent out two emails in this respect to the US Department of
State and to the UK home secretary [i.e. home minister] but
both have failed to reply. Interestingly the UK government
when banning the IM on 5 July this year informed the British
Parliament that IM is trying to establish an Islamic state in
India and endeavours to implement Shariah in India which
is a claim even the Government of India has not made.
Below the two emails which are self- explanatory:
I
Email to the US State Department
Ambassador Daniel Benjamin
Coordinator of the Department of States Coordinator for
Counterterrorism
Dear Sir,
On 15 September this year, Secretary Clinton on your
advice designated the Indian Mujahideen (IM) as a
Foreign Terrorist Organization
(http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/09/172442.htm).
I will be grateful if you would kindly let me know the basis
for this decision, was it based on an independent US
assessment or just based on information received from the
Indian government. There are people here in India who
believe that Indian Mujahidin does not exist, that it is a cre-
ation of the Indian intelligence to serve its purposes. Apart
from some tall claims, this organisations whereabouts, its
leaders etc are unknown. We, as Indian Muslims, are very
much concerned with this matter as the subtle message or
subtext of Indian Mujahidin is that some Indian Muslims
indulge in terrorism which is not correct at all. We abhor and
reject terrorism in all forms.
Waiting for your reply.
Yours sincerely
Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan
Editor, The Milli Gazette
New Delhi, India
Email: edit@milligazette.com
22 Sept. 2011
(Receipt of this email was confirmed by the U.S. Department of
State vide message at http://contact-
us.state.gov/app/ask_confirm/refno/110922-000034 (at 2:52
pm - 22-9-11) but no reply has been received till date [24
August 2012].
II
Email to the UK Home Department
Ms. Theresa May
Honble Home Secretary, London, U.K.
Email: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk ;
mayt@parliament.uk
Dear Ms. May
You announced in the House of Commons on 5 July this
year that the UK government has banned the so-called
Indian Mujahideen organisation which, according to your
reported statements, had been engaged in indiscriminate
mass-casualty attacks in India. You were further reported
to have said that this so-called outfit uses violence to
achieve its stated objectives of establishing an Islamic state
in India and implementing Sharia law (Asian Age, Delhi,
6 July 2012).
Your junior colleague at the Home Office Minister Mr.
James Brokenshire reportedly told House of Commons on
the same day that the decision was not taken lightly but
after thoroughly reviewing all the available information
about the India-based terror group (Pioneer, Delhi, 6 July
2012).
We are very much concerned about the issue of terror-
ism in India as it touches the lives of the Muslim communi-
ty here. We would like to request you to let us know the
grounds and the informations used to arrive at this decision
including the claim that the said outfit (Indian Mujahideen)
wants to establish an Islamic state in India and to imple-
ment Sharia here.
Thanking you in anticipation,
Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan
Editor, The Milli Gazette
Email sent on 17 August 2012 via email to both the official and
personal email IDs of the British minister but no reply or even
acknowledgment received so far.
TWO EMAILS, NO REPLY
Why Indian Mujahidin is banned?
Banned
Organisations
(as shown on Indian Ministry of Home Affairs website on
24 August 2012)
List of organisations declared as terrorist organisations under
the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967
1. Babbar Khalsa International
2. Khalistan Commando Force
3. Khalistan Zindabad Force
4. International Sikh Youth Federation
5. Lashkar-e-Taiba/Pasban-e-Ahle Hadis
6. Jaish-e-Mohammad/Tahrik-e-Furqan
7. Harkat-ul-Mujahideen/Harkat-ul-Ansar/Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami
8. Hizb-ul-Mujahideen/ Hizb-ul-Mujahideen Pir Panjal Regiment
9. Al-Umar-Mujahideen
10. Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front
11. United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA)
12. National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB)
13. Peoples Liberation Army (PLA)
14. United National Liberation Front (UNLF)
15. Peoples Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK)
16. Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP)
17. Kanglei Yaol Kanba Lup (KYKL)
18. Manipur Peoples Liberation Front (MPLF)
19. All Tripura Tiger Force
20. National Liberation Front of Tripura
21. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
22. Students Islamic Movement of India
23. Deendar Anjuman
24. Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) -- Peoples War, All
its formations and front organizations
25. Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), All its formations and Front
Organisations
26. Al Badr
27. Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen
28. Al-Qaida
29. Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DEM)
30. Tamil Nadu Liberation Army (TNLA)
31. Tamil National Retrieval Troops (TNRT)
32. Akhil Bharat Nepali Ekta Samaj (ABNES)
33. Organisations listed in the Schedule to the U.N. Prevention and
Suppression of Terrorism (Implementation of Security Council
Resolutions) Order,2007 made under section 2 of the United
Nations (Security Council) Act, 1947 (43 of 1947) and amended
from time to time www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/pdf/AQList.pdf
34. Communist Party of India (Maoist) all its formations and front
organisations
35.Indian Mujahideen and all its formations and front organisations
Source: http://www.mha.nic.in/uniquepage.asp?Id_Pk=292
Police stories about Terrorism
cases are full of loopholes, yet
alleged terrorists remain behind
bars for years because courts fail to
take notice of these loopholes. With
this issue we will hilight some of
these glaring cases
Azizur Rahman (32 years) belongs to Alipore,
West Bengal. He is currently lodged in Lucknow
jail. A team of U.P. Special Task Force (STF)
went to Alipore on 26 June 2007 and took cus-
tody of Azizur Rahman who was already in
police custody there and brought him to
Lucknow. STF claims that Azizur Rahman,
alongwith his colleague Jalaluddin, came to
Lucknow on 22 June with a quantity of RDX.
Here, they parted company. On 23 June, Azizur
Rahman was waiting for his colleague
Jalaluddin at Lucknows Char Bagh railway sta-
tion, when he came to know that police have
arrested Jalaluddin. Azizur Rahman immediate-
ly went to Sanjay Gandhi PGI where he hid the
RDX quantity he was carrying. Then he came
back to Char Bagh Railway Station and fled to
West Bengal.
Advocate Mohammad Shoaib, who is
defending Azizur Rahman, says that the very
fact that the U.P. STF took Azizur Rahmans
custody from Alipore police means that he was
already in police custody there. Alipore Police
Station records say that police had arrested him
on 22 June 2007 on the charge of planning for
a dacoity. He was produced before Alipore
District SJM court same day. How can Azizur
Rahman be produced in Alipore court if he was
in Lucknow to commit a crime as claimed by
U.P. STF? And if he was already in Alipore cus-
tody, how can he hide RDX in Lucknow on 23
June?
Despite these glaring loopholes, Azizur
Rahmen remains in jail for the last five years.
The court is yet to find time to hear his case and
decide his fate.
Abrar Ahmad
G h u l a m
Ahmad (41
years), an
accused in
M a l e g a o n
blasts case,
was a police
informer who
was made an
accused in the
case. During
detention, he was mercilessly tortured. His body
still betrays torture signs and he still suffers from
pain in his lower parts of the body. After deten-
tion, he was kept by the police at various tem-
ples, maths and pathshalas in Nasik, Stana and
then in Madhya Pradesh. During torture his toe-
nails were taken out and his toes are still bro-
ken. He was routinely made to take narcotics.
During his ordeal, he separated from his wife
Janatunnisa. He has now joined the family busi-
ness of handloom alongwith his brothers who
still do not let him do any hard work. He was
freed on bail alongwith other Muslims accused
in the Malegaon case in early 2012 as a result
of Aseemanands confession. During detention,
Abrar Ahmad had filed an affidavit on April 18,
2009 detailing his ordeal and how he was
forced to become an approver (the full text was
translated and published in the Milli Gazette
issue no. 238). Later, Aseemanands confes-
sions corroborated Abrars story.
S a j j a d u r
Rahman (25
years) belongs
to Chataroo,
d i s t r i c t
Kishtwar, J&K.
He is accused
of taking part in
the Lucknow
and Faizabad
courts blasts of
23 November
2007. He was studying in Darul Uloom Deoband
at the time. His father Ghulam Qadir still
remembers 22 December 2007 when Chataroo
police arrested Sajjadur Rahman and handed
him over to the U.P. police. Ghulam Qadir says
that his son had come home to celebrate Eid Al-
Adha which fell on 21 December that year. Next
morning, he was arrested. Qadir, a simple
labourer, did not know why police took away his
son. After visiting various government offices for
a week, Qadir was told that his son has been
taken away by U.P. police.
There are many serious loopholes in the
police story about Sajjadur Rahman. Darul
Uloom Deoband records show that Sajjadur
Ranham was present in the seminary on that
day and his classroom register shows him as
present in his class that day.
The Police case against Sajjadur Rahman
is so weak that the police failed for three and a
half years to file chargesheet against him in the
court. Because of these glaring loopholes,
Sajjadur Rahman has been exonerated in the
Lucknow blast case but he has not been set
free because he is also accused in the other
blast which occurred same day 129 kms away
in Faizabad (!).
Ghulam Qadir came to Lucknow in July
2012 to meet his son. He asks, if his son is
accused in both these cases which occurred on
the same day at two distant places, why is he
still accused in one case after being exonerated
in the other case? Poor Ghulam Qadir has to
sell his sheep or take loan each time he comes
to Lucknow.
Compiled by ZAFARUL-ISLAM KHAN
Sacrificial Lambs - I
MUSTAFA KHAN
Three men started their journey from
Aurangabad in the morning of May 9, 2006. One
was Amir Shakil, Zubair and the Indica driver
Mujaffar. They were going to Beed to attend a
wedding but changed their plan and drove
instead to Manmad and from there they went to
HP Petrol Pump near Pimpalgaon. There was a
Tata Sumo with the driver inside and a man
standing by the Sumo. Amir introduced the man
to the others. The stranger was Zabiuddin
[Zabihuddin]. Zabi told Mujaffer to follow his
Sumo. A couple of miles further towards
Chandawad, Zabi asked the driver Azam to stop
the car near a container of Aysher Company.
Zabi talked to the two men on the container.
Then they took out ten cartons and loaded them
into the Sumo. Five more were loaded in the
Indica. Thereafter Zabi got into the Indica and
told Mujaffar to follow the Sumo in which Zubair
and Amir were also sitting now. The Sumo
reached Manmad-Yeola junction on the
Aurangabad road. It was six in the evening. ACP
Kisan Shengal and another police officer called
Sunil Deshmukh were present there along with
other policemen. They were from the ATS
deputed on the special duty to intercept the
Sumo and arrest the riders who were carrying
explosives, guns and ammunition. But the driv-
er of the Sumo sped away. In the meantime,
Zabi had taken the Indica to Malegaon and
reached the octroi post at Motibag naka. He
took a call from Dr Sharif Shabbir Ahmed and
told Mujaffar to drive back and stop at Tibbiya
College Mansoora. They dumped the five car-
tons in the RMO office and drove on the new
Agra road and came to Chandanpuri naka. Zabi
did not want to cross it because he had come
there earlier thinking it was the octroi post lead-
ing to Dhulia. He feared that the octroi people
would recognize him; yet they drove on. Then
Zabiuddin gave the key and the car to Dr Sharif
to take care and departed for Aurangabad by
bus via Chalisgaon. Mujaffar travelled separate-
ly.
On June 21, 2012 the Delhi police arrested
a man extradited from Saudi Arabia and called
him Abu Jundal. The man known previously as
Zabiuddin was now Abu Jundal. Doubts arise
about the sea-change of an individual's person-
ality or are they two different personae? Zabi
was a police informer and worked for the super-
intendent of police of Beed and repaired his
electricity supply occasionally. He also eked out
his existence by part-timing as a police informer.
Is it thinkable that in just over two years, this
simple youth could go through a complete
change and be with Hafiz Saeed and other
important members of the Pakistani terror outfit
and sit in the control room in Karachi directing
the operation on November 26, 2008? If he
taught Hindi to the 10 terrorists involved in the
attack, it could have been very casual. The
Pakistanis are fond of Bollywood films and
watch them with avid interest. They could easily
learn the Mumbai lingo from the movies!
The police say he had fled to Pakistan. But
they had failed to do anything to trace him from
where he had handed over the Indica to Dr
Sharif. If Police were really on alert and on
watchout for the arms haul on May 9, 2006, why
did they not bother to trace the Indica for such a
long time? Moreover, the car was left roaming in
the city for four full days. How could the ATS
claim that Sharif and others wanted to destroy
the car. The car could not be hidden in Tibbiya
College Mansoora or the lumber yard or vakhar
of Mustaque. If they really wanted to destroy it,
why did they roam in it for more than three
days? This is a poignant question as the ATS
claims to have been on the lookout for this par-
ticular car and knew how deadly a consignment
it was carrying.
Zabi also named the other accused in the
arms haul case and got them arrested when
they were not involved in any illegal arms trans-
fer or sale. Five of these accused are from
Malegaon: Dr Mohammad Sharif Shabbir
Ahmed, Riyaz Ahmed Mohammad Ramzan,
Mohammad Javid Abdul Majid, Afzal Gulam
Nabi Ahmed and Mustaque Ahmed Mohammad
Ishaque. They had never met the other accused
or had any previous contact with them. Their
arrest was made on account of the false infor-
mation given to the police by Zabi. This gives
credence to the popular belief that he was in
contact with the police or was in their custody. If
he gave the cops the slip after abandoning the
car with Sharif, he could have tried to escape
the police who would have killed him in an
encounter if he went against their directions.
Another puzzling question is: why they
dumped only two wooden boxes containing
ammunition and a CPU containing one AK 47 in
the well near the culvert around the curve of the
Manmad Yeola road in Ankai? The police was
chasing them and when in such a hurry, who
could they conveniently go to the well to dump
only these and not the whole consignment?
Was Zabi under close watch of the chasing
police? He may have abandoned the Indica to
destroy his trail in order to escape the police.
There is another dimension to the case as
far as the alleged role of Pius Agarwal of
Santosh Cycle, Malegaon, is concerned. He has
allegedly told a caller that he and some associ-
ates had put the two wooden boxes and a CPU
in the well of Ankai and given a list of names
which would match their purpose. This they had
done at the instance of the SP Rajwardhan and
that Rajwardhan had lifted the dumped material.
There would be a further meeting of Pius and
his associates with Rajwardhan at an appointed
place.
Even more complicating is the elusive
Ahmad of Nasik as reported at http://blogs.hin-
dustantimes.com/inside-story/2012/06/27/indi-
an-agencies-hit-a-goldmine-in-abu-jundal/:
He (Abu Jindal) disclosed how he picked
up 16 AK-47 rifles and 43 kilograms of RDX
from one Ahmed in Nashik and brought them to
Aurangabad before the arms seizure on May 9,
2006.
Who is this one Ahmed? Is he Abrar
Ahmed whose story is sometimes headlined
with the name of the district Nasik rather than
the town Malegaon which happens in Nasik dis-
trict? Or the one who is involved in a crime com-
mitted in Nasik but has played a crucial role in
the blasts of 2006? In either case, more danger-
ous is the man who handed Jindal the consign-
ment of the RDX.
This Ahmed could certainly be another
police informer or else how could such confiden-
tial transfer be made viable in the face of the
ATS manning the checkposts all along the route
and the cars moving with the consignment so
clearly visible and protruding? As Hindustan
Times of February 8, 2010 reported, As a dou-
ble agent, Ansari led the Intelligence Bureau
and the Maharashtra police to the biggest arms
haul outside Jammu and Kashmir in the last 10
yearsIf he (Zabi) had helped further, we could
have unearthed the entire link, said Sunil
Deshmukh.
In February 2010, India according to the
then home minister Chidambrum had no voice
print of Zabi (Indian suspected of 26/11 role
once worked for India, double agent state elec-
trician led cops to biggest haul in decade, now
enemy - Hindustan Times, 8 Feb., 2010 -
ht t p: / / www. hi ndust ant i mes. com/ News-
Feed/India/26-11-indian-suspect-once-worked-
for-india/Article1-506534.aspx).
Such huge was the consignment of arms
and RDX that it would be impossible to rule out
police involvement in the movement of the cul-
prits and the transport. From the Tata Sumo 30
kg of RDX, 10 AK 47 assault rifles, 2000 live
rounds, 40 magazines, 10 pouches, in the
Indica there were 13 kg of RDX, 5 AK 47 rifles,
1000 live cartridges, 20 magazines and 4
pouches were recovered. In the Ankai seizure,
there were 50 hand grenades, one AK 47 rifle,
200 live rounds, two magazines and one pouch
of RDX.
When a delegation from Malegaon pointed
out some of these discrepancies in a letter to the
chairman of the National Commission for
Minorities, Wajahat Habibullah, he observed in
his letter to the then Home Minister
Chidambaram on 12 July, 2012: I am forward-
ing this letter to you to bring to your attention the
widespread impression, particularly in the
Muslim community, that they are automatic tar-
gets of police action in incidents of terrorist
activity. This is further confounded in the state of
Maharashtra by the Abu Jindal disclosure, from
which state Zabihuddin hails, and apparently
worked for the Maharashtra police as electrician
and also informer.
It is the contention of a delegation that
called on this Commission from Malegaon that
individuals arrested prior to the Malegaon blast
cases on charges of stocking explosives were
arrested solely on grounds of information pro-
vided by the said Abu Jindal, which they allege
was invented, he said in his letter.
The police and essentially ATS Maharashtra
have badly botched up investigations by ran-
domly putting on accused in whichever cases
they felt they need Muslims to frame up. For
example, Mohammad Ali was arrested in 2006
blasts and was one of the nine accused. As a
matter of fact, he was present in the Kurla police
station when the bombs blew up on September
8, 2006. The only offense he seemed to have
committed was to go to the police in Kurla along
with Dr Salman Farsi and complain against an
illegal video parlor. Dr Salman too was booked
in the 2006 blast in Malegaon. Mohammad Ali
was also framed in the train blasts of July 11,
2006. But he was from Mumbai and another
from outside Malegaon was Asif Bashir Junaid
Khan. His fault was that he was a former SIMI
member. The banned Muslim students outfit
bars anyone above 30 to be its member. Asif,
now 41, was much older anyway. As an engi-
neer, he had left Jalgaon and settled in Mira
Road in Thane-Mumbai. It is likely that Muslims
of Mira Road were better off and were an eye-
sore for the ATS and the police and hence he
was picked up for the arms haul (May 2006),
Mumbai train blasts of July 11, 2006 and
Malegaon blasts of the same year.
There is a network of police informers which
is behind the Aurangabad arms haul and other
such cases. Zabi was one of these informers
and the other suspected informer was the
above-mentioned one Ahmed from Nasik.
Another informer, Abrar, is well-known by now.
Suspicion also lurks about the role that Mufti
Ismail, now MLA, played in 2006 and particular-
ly in the midnight of 15 May, 2006. A local
reporter casts doubts at the role of Mufti who
was not a political leader then. Around that mid-
night, arms and ammunitions were seized from
Abdullah electric shop across the road from the
Azad Nagar Police Station. After midnight, the
arms and explosives were taken to Himatnager
police quarters. Later in the midnight,
Rajwardhan held a press conference and arrest-
ed five Muslim youths. Mufti Ismail reached
there at this midnight hour. He was neither a
reporter of any newspaper nor was he a mem-
ber of any political party. His presence there and
the way he talked to Rajwardhan and the offen-
sive actions he showed (harkaten), made peo-
ple realise what kind of man he was. Former
MLA Nihal Ahmad always called this Mufti as an
arch police informer. These may be political dif-
ferences of opinion but they highlight the murky
side that is simply puzzling to say the least. The
reporter goes further and says that soon after
the blasts of September 8, 2006, the Mufti after
leading the Friday prayer at the central mosque
remarked to the reporters that the explosions
were the result of two cars colliding and it is not
bomb blasts. He also proffered himself to sit in
the police van and go round the town asking
people to maintain peace. Dar asl yeh
Rajwardhan ki dosti kar wa rahi thi. In ki dosti
corporation election aur assembly election se
mazid manzar aam par aayee (It was Muftis
close friendship with Rajwardhan that was pro-
pelling this. The secret of this relationship
became clear in the forthcoming corporation
election [which his party won four months later]
and assembly elections [which he ultimately
won]). Abbas concludes that baygunah Muslim
nawjawanon ko bomb dhamakon mein
phasane-wale SP Rajwardhan kay yeh khasul
khas hain (Mufti Ismail is the special friend of
Rajwardhan who framed the Muslim youths)
(Discipline, January 10, 2011).
There was allegedly hardly any change in
Muftis stance as he continued to wrangle with
Abrars family blaming them as police informers
receiving kickbacks and commission. This he
did from no other place than the sanctum sanc-
torum of the Idgah maidan.
But then a bolt from the blue changed all
that as the confession of Aseemanand was
made public by Tehelka on January 7, 2011 and
even the present writer in his article of January
3, 2011, made it clear that Aseemanand was
responsible for the 2006 blasts (see
Commonalty blog). On January 10, a delegation
of Muslims visited the chief minister of
Maharashtra to press for the release of the
bomb blasts accused in the light of the said con-
fession. Strangely enough, the sitting Malegaon
MLA Mufti Ismail abstained from the meeting.
Former MLA Suhail Lokhandwalla called his
absence as the disappearance of the horns
from the head of the donkey.
Aurangabad arms haul case of 2006,
Mumbai train blasts of July 2006, Malegaon
bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008 and some other
cases have a common link. The RDX used in all
these must have had a common source -- either
from the accused Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohits
stock or the stock of Shanker Shelke of
Ahmednager, or from the seizures in Jammu &
Kashmir. Shelke killed himself the very next day
of 2006 Malegaon blasts. Such murders or sui-
cides open a can of lies and if there is a suspi-
cion that Police or their informers are involved, it
is all the more serious an issue for the security
of the nation and unity of the country.
The lessons that we learn are numerous.
One, that the police should not use informers
for dubious purposes. Two, they should not
use informers to commit crimes that violate
the Constitution of India in letter and spirit.
Three, if the Delhi police arrests Abu Jundal
because of the truculence that the ATS of
Maharashtra had arrested Delhi polices
informer Naquee, this clearly shows one-
upmanship and turf war that does no one any
good. Four, to implicate an innocent Indian in
a crime by the police, must not be allowed by
any means and for any purpose. Hence the
need of the hour is what Vice President
Hamid Ansari argued in his Kao Memorial
Lecture that the investigation agencies should
be under the observation of a Parliamentary
committee of experts.
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 9
NATIONAL
Zabiuddin or Abu Jundal?
Are they one and same man?
NATIONAL
10 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
AFSANA RASHID, SRINAGAR
Asking State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) to dispose off
the case of unmarked graves, the state government has said that
the matter will be investigated by a yet to be constituted Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the constitution of which is
dithering from the past many years.
In its 27-page Action Taken Report submitted to SHRC
August 16, the states home department maintains that most
unmarked graves stand identified by respective police stations
and the remaining belong mostly to unidentified militants killed in
various encounters.
It further maintains that the government is open to a probe
which includes DNA sampling to confirm the identity of the
deceased. The report also traces measures taken by the govern-
ment to investigate the matter.
It mentions that chief minister Omar Abdullah gave an idea
about the TRC on the floor of the state legislature on March 5 last
year. He also raised the issue in National Integration Council
meeting in New Delhi in September, last year.
The report states that the TRCs constitution requires consul-
tation and broad consensus among stakeholders. In view of
detailed submission, the case of unmarked graves filed before
SHRC may kindly be disposed off, asks the Home Department in
the report.
Pertinently, SHRC launched investigation into unmarked
graves following a campaign by APDP and International Tribunal
on Human Rights in Kashmir (ITHRK). An inquiry by SHRCs
investigative wing brought to the fore the fact that there are 2,156
unmarked graves at 38 sites in north Kashmir.
In another case, SHRC, August 13 passed strictures against
the former IGP Kashmir, P S Gill saying he has failed to file his
response in the abduction of six foreigners in 1995 by Al-Faran
militants.
Commissions division bench observed P S Gill, non-appli-
cant hasnt till date responded to any communications by it.
Taking adverse inference against Gill will visit him with harsh con-
sequences.
The Commission directed its Secretary to address independ-
ent communication to him and asked the Deputy Commissioner
Anantnag to expedite submission of its report in the case.
Master file retained in SSP Crime office has been gutted and
reduced to ashes in a fire on September 11, 2010. SHO of
Pahalgam police station has already submitted Ikhtitamis (closure
reports) of FIR 66/1995, 67/1995 and 70/1995 before the Judicial
Magistrate, Aishmuqam. If that is so, Secretary of the
Commission shall call for the record of Ikhtitamis along with case
diary files and allied documents from the court, said the bench.
APDP and ITHRK had filed a joint petition in SHRC on April
6 seeking fresh probe into the case following disclosures in
recently published book, The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 - Where
the Terror Began that foreigners were killed on the directions of
security forces.
AFPSA: lack of consensus delays action
Admitting that there was a lack of consensus among various
stakeholders over the revocation of Armed Forces Special
Powers Act (AFSPA), chief minister Omar Abdullah has said, that
though discussions were on, the point of reaching an amicable
solution was yet to be arrived at.
I have no hesitation in saying that we wanted to reach a posi-
tion where we could revoke AFSPA from some areas of the state.
Unfortunately, we havent reached that point yet, said Omar, in
his Independence Day address here August 15.
He said the issue of revocation of AFSPA hasnt been closed,
as a dialogue was going on with the Ministry of Defence and the
Army. He asserted that the Act would be revoked from the state
during his tenure.
The chief minister said that militancy-related violence has
been considerably down over the last three years. Improvement
in the security scenario has helped the government in reducing
footprints of security forces from civilian areas.
Meanwhile, Pradesh Congress chief Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz on
August 9 said at Jammu he stalled revocation of AFSPA from the
state and the Centre has put the issue on the backburner.
People should have been consulted. So I believed that the
demand was premature.
National Conference Additional General Secretary,
Dr Mustafa Kamaal told local news agency KNS August 10
Putting such a viewpoint in public indicates that Congress wants
to use the army for its own political purposes. Sozs statement
indicates that he wants unrest to continue in the state.
Soz August 10 said that his comment was distorted by the
media. Today, my stand is AFSPA had been adopted as a tem-
porary measure. In the changed security scenario, AFSPA revo-
cation is possible.
Asking separatists to get ready for talks, chief minister here
August 15 said neither gun nor economic measures can resolve
the Kashmir issue. Kashmir is a political issue and needs to be
addressed politically through the dialogue process.
Rejecting the invitation, Hurriyat (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah
Geelani, August 16 said, Omar is unnecessarily getting involved
in the issue. He is just a puppet and has no mandate to invite us
for talks.
Hurriyat (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said, New Delhi
should either be sincere or not use these time-consuming tactics.
Everyone is fully aware how Omar couldnt revoke AFSFA. On
what merits he can now talk of Kashmir issue.
JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik said, Recently,
Defence Minister A K Antony told Parliament that Kashmir isnt an
issue. Omar should know his jurisdiction, otherwise it projects him
as a political joker.
7 out of 10 subscriptions are through WORD OF MOUTH
You know we dont have the resources to advertise & promote ourselves, so
please ask your friends to get their copy now
THE MILLI GAZETTE
First English Newspaper of Indian Muslims. Telling the Muslim side of the story fortnight after fortnight since January 2000
Govt asks SHRC to close unmarked graves file
An RTI application filed by the Association of Parents of
Disappeared Persons (APDP) and International Peoples
Tribunal Kashmir (IPTK) led the state Police to disclose that there
are 2,683 FIRs lodged about missing Kashmiris. Out of these,
492 were filed in Handwara alone while Kupwara and Trehgam
came next with 396 and 326, respectively. The number is 527 up
by what was revealed in an earlier investigation by the State
Human Rights Commission (SHRC). Citing the discrepancy, the
IPTK has filed a petition with the SHRC to order a re-investiga-
tion, with the J&K police providing information of FIRs from 17
more districts. The revelation came after the J&K polices crimi-
nal investigation had refused to give the information to the IPTK.
(The) disclosure of information sought would be prejudicial to the
maintenance of public peace and tranquillity as the anti-national
elements may use the same for incitement... the CID had said in
its reply. The 2009 IPTK report mentions 62 graveyards investi-
gated at Bandipora, Baramulla and Kupwara, from which 2700
unmarked mass graves containing 2943 bodies were document-
ed.
Case withdrawn against a PoK national
who said he is an Indian
Mumbai: A Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) citizen Siraj Khan
who arrived in Mumbai without a passport and other necessary
documents was obviously arrested under the Passport Act and
Foreign Citizens Act. But he strongly argued that India always
claims PoK as a part of Indian Kashmir and hence an Indian ter-
ritory and on this basis he is not a Pakistani but an Indian nation-
al, so why he was being arrested for coming to India? When pre-
sented in court, as per the normal procedure, there also he
advanced the same reasoning. Maharashtra government, seeing
some weight in his argument which was in favour of India, also
contended in Mumbai High Court that PoK is part of India and
hence Siraj Khan too is an Indian and wanted the case against
him withdrawn because he was a natural citizen of India.
Instrument of Accession lodged with
National Archives
While the Jammu and Kashmir government had refused to
divulge details about the much disputed Instrument of
Accession (IoA) stating the disclosure would prejudicially affect
the sovereignty and integrity of India, the Centre has replied to
an RTI application filed by Advocate Irfan Lone saying the histor-
ically significant document was transferred from the Home
Ministry to the National Archives of India (NAI) in 2010. Even
when confirmed by the NAI that the availability was not an issue
(as claimed by the J&K government), the validity and credibility of
the document have been debated for the better half of the last
century and the document has been a bone of contention
between Kashmiris and the Central government for decades
some claiming that the IoA was never signed.
Kashmiri orphans traumatized: report
A survey conducted by Save The Children found that conflict,
physical and social environment, had a more than meets the eye
impact on children in the Valley of Kashmir. The report, named
Orphaned in Kashmir, noted that a majority of orphaned kids
suffered from several mental and traumatic disorders. Their expe-
riences depended on the intensity of the conflict in their localities,
with 5 percent revealed having faced abuses and threats of some
kind. The respondents specified abuses as having guns pointed
at them, threats from police/army/militants, being illegally
detained and interrogated, among others. Recurring nightmares,
nervousness (40 percent), loss of appetite, sleeplessness (12
percent), depression (20 percent) are some of the problems
faced by them. The report suggests the figures are under-esti-
mated as the children are unwilling/unable to confide about such
abuses.
Govt to form committee
on tobacco control
Jammu and Kashmir Government is contemplating to constitute
a high-level monitoring Committee under the Chairmanship of
Chief Minister to curb the menace of tobacco and other allied
products in J&K.
This was revealed by Minister for Health and Family Welfare
Sham Lal Sharma at a meeting of representatives of Voluntary
Health Association of India (VHAI) on 22 August.
Expressing concern over the increasing cases of cancer
every year due to use of tobacco in different forms, the minister
stressed the need for strong measures to minimize the use of cig-
arettes, gutkas and other such products while seeking societys
help in dealing with the issue.
He said only Government efforts are not enough to get rid of
the menace. He appealed to social and religious organisations to
use their influence and educate the society about the ill-effects of
tobacco and other similar substances which are eating into the
vitals of the society.
Appreciating the efforts of the VHAI and other credible NGOs
in the field of social service, the minister said that all like-minded
organisations should come forward and help Government in fight-
ing these social evils. He supported the pledge of VHAI for mak-
ing Jammu and Kashmir smoke/gutka-free and said that
Government will take more steps to make deterrent laws to deal
with the situation.
Compiled by AALIYA KHAN
RTI reveals 2,683 FIRs about missing Kashmiris
APSCC demands fresh probe
of Chattisingpora
Demanding a fresh and impartial probe into the Chattisinghpora
incident, All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) has
criticized the state government for failing to provide minority sta-
tus to Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing a two-day (August 17-18) national level Ethnic
Sikh conference at Srinagar, committee members termed the
governments silence over Chattisinghpora incident as criminal.
The investigating agencies have established that the
Pathribal encounter was fake. Since Chattisinghpora and
Pathribal cases are interconnected, the government should
order a fresh and impartial probe into it, said Jagmohan Singh
Raina, chairman of the committee. Thirty five Sikhs including
children were killed in Chattisinghpora village in south Kashmirs
Anantnag district on the evening of March 20, 2000. Five days
after the incident, the Army killed seven men in Pathribal claim-
ing the deceased were foreign militants responsible for the
killings. CBI, investigating the case, concluded that the Pathribal
encounter was fake and the seven persons killed were civilians.
Later, it submitted its report to the Supreme Court.
Karnail Singh Peer Mohammad, president Sikh Student
Federation said, Killing of Sikhs in mistaken-identities cant be
tolerated as that implies a genocide of minority community.
Raina alleged that they are being neglected both by the state
and the Centre. Owing to discrimination, Sikhs have started a
slow migration to outside state. The Committee August 18
threatened to start a protest march from city-centre here to
Parliament in case their demands arent met.
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 11
ANALYSIS
Paradoxically, to this day certain anti-Muslim elements
are bent on targeting them for reasons that have practi-
cally little validity. One of them is objection of Muslims in
general regarding singing Vande Matram. Well, whatever
are the reasons, why should they be forced to sing Vande
Matram? What is wrong if they refuse to do so? There is
no denying that as a national song, Vande Matram is
viewed as an important symbol in India. Muslims have not
in general raised any objection to this fact. They have not
taken any step which may be considered as an abuse of
this symbol.
Elementarily speaking, the song is written in Bengali
and Sanskrit, languages which are not understood by all
Indians. In this context, it makes no sense to be forced to
sing a song, which is hardly comprehensible to a majori-
ty of Indian Muslims. If they understand the songs mean-
ing and object to singing it as it is not in keeping with
their religious beliefs, well they have complete freedom
and right to abstain from singing it. Constitutionally, each
Muslim is allowed the right and freedom to practice
his/her religious beliefs. Please note, the Indian
Constitution guarantees Indian Muslims the right and
freedom to practice their religion. Each citizen has this
right and freedom. At the same time, no citizen is expect-
ed to allow his/her religious practises to disturb that of
others. Indian secularism stands for a multi-religious
society with all religious communities allowed the right
and freedom to practice their respective religious beliefs
without crossing certain limits. This implies without
arousing communal ill-will and/or indulging in communal
violence in the name of propagating ones own brand of
religion and/or targeting that being practiced by others.
The Indian law and order does not permit communal vio-
lence even if the same has religious label tagged to it.
The Indian Constitution has been specifically
referred to as it does not permit abuse of any person or
religious community on ground of his/her religious iden-
tity. No section of the Indian Constitution makes it legal-
ly binding on all Indian citizens to memorize and sing
Vande Matram. There is no reference in legal texts to
singing of Vande Matrum being compulsory for all citi-
zens. There is no mention of any Indian, including
Muslim, losing his/her rights or the citizenship of the
country on the ground of his/her not willing to sing Vande
Matram.
Unfortunately, to this date, certain extremist ele-
ments assume themselves to be law-makers particular-
ly regarding the rights and freedoms of Indian Muslims.
The same goes for these elements assuming that they
have the right to dictate their terms to Indian Muslims,
where singing Vande Matram is concerned. Well, they are
welcome to sing it as much as they wish to. But this does
not give them the authority to influence Indian Muslims
decision to abstain from singing it. It is time this miscon-
ception was cleared. Seriously speaking, their making
undue noise over Muslims unwillingness to sing Vande
Matrum is equivalent to their assuming that the countrys
law and order is decided by their decisions and not as
laid down by the Indian Constitution and Parliament.
It is not possible here to highlight all misconceptions
deliberately promoted by Hindutva elements against
Indian Muslims, but one or two may be briefly referred to.
There is no denying the fact that Muslim rulers held
power in India for several centuries during the medieval
period. Unfortunately, extremist elements, particularly
those linked with Sangh Parivar, project this period as
one where Hindus were targeted by Muslim kings. Clearly,
the Sangh Parivars aim remains polarization of Indian
society along religious lines and promoting an anti-
Muslim attitude among the Hindus. If Muslim kings main
motive was spread of religion, then Muslims in the coun-
try would not have remained a minority to this day. If they
had literally used swords to spread their religion, the per-
centage of Muslims in the Indian population would have
been 50 percent, if not more. To this day, Muslims consti-
tute less than 14 percent of the countrys population.
Why? Do extremists, anti-Muslim elements have an
answer to this reality? Probably not. This is simply
because they still prefer being guided by their own
cooked up misperceptions and distorted versions of
medieval history.
The same may be said about their continuing to tag
Pakistani label with the identity of the Indian Muslims.
The Muslims living in India are descendents of those who
preferred partition of their families in 1947 to remain here.
This makes patriotism of Indian Muslims all the more
commendable. It reduces suspicion held about their
Pakistan-affinity, propagated by Hindutva elements, to
sheer manipulation deliberately indulged in order to iso-
late Muslims within their own homeland. Luckily, to this
day, Sangh Parivar has not succeeded in this anti-Muslim
campaign. In fact, had secular Hindus not been in the
forefront, raising their voice against anti-Muslim commu-
nalism promoted by Hindutva elements, India would not
have been home to the second largest population of
Muslims in the world. And secularism would not have pre-
vailed here!
Speaki ng Out
Sangh Parivars
Anti-Muslim
Stand
NI LOFAR SUHRAWARDY
Violence in
Mumbai Assam
and Burma
Killings of
Muslims
ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER
The way things were happening for the last few weeks it was not
surprising that violence on such scale took place in Mumbai. It
was, as if, in store. Large-scale propaganda was going on that
Muslims are being killed all over the world. There is conspiracy to
kill Muslims everywhere. On Bodo-Muslim clashes and about
Rohingiyah Muslims in Burma prayers were being organized in
mosques and SMSs were circulating about it. Urdu newspapers
were carrying articles saying there is world-wide conspiracy to kill
Muslims. Articles simply appealing to emotions, not to reason.
I have not seen any sober and analytical article in the Urdu
press in Mumbai. The Muslim leadership was creating a psychol-
ogy of victimhood in the minds of Muslims and pent up emotions
were waiting to explode with some triggering event. The photo-
graphs about killing of Muslims in Burma had greatly disturbed the
Muslim youth. All photographs, I must say, were not authentic but
they were circulated on large scale and ignited emotions.
Muslim leadership, which hardly does anything for the real
welfare of the community, always has an eye on such sensitive sit-
uations and wants to grab the opportunity to enhance its own
interests. Also, mosques were used to announce about the rally
giving it further religious colour. Those who go to mosques to pray,
in large numbers, particularly in the holy month of Ramadan, are
gullible and the moment religious colour is given to an issue they
become extra-sensitive.
These religious leaders and also some non-religious leaders
of Muslims neither fully understand the problem nor do they care
to know the facts on the ground. They simply make it a case of
conspiracy against Muslims. In Azad Maidan too, where the
Mumbai rally was organized despite knowing that huge crowd was
there with all sorts of people, speakers made highly emotional
speeches, especially attacking media for not covering killing of
Muslims in Burma. Then what more do you want to incite emotions
for anything to happen.
It was not only a question of managing the crowd. It was an
utterly irresponsible act on the part of the leadership of the rally. If
they had expected only 1500 persons to attend and 50,000 turned
up, the leaders should have clearly understood that the situation
can get out of control any time as they were simply dealing with
raw emotions. A wise leadership would not have allowed highly
emotional speeches in the midst of such huge and diverse crowd
and fuel emotions further.
It is also not correct to say that they expected only 1500 peo-
ple to turn up as they were making announcements inside
mosques on Friday and also posters were put up. It means they
aimed at attracting large crowds and made efforts to mobilize
them and succeeded in it. The ideal thing would have been to
have a dharna by about 1000-1500 seriously interested people for
a day long event and then they could have met the Chief Minister
or the Home Minister. There was no need at all for such a huge
rally.
And if at all such a huge rally was organized why such emo-
tional speeches were made? They should have understood the
sensitivity of the problem. But then if they did, how can they be
Muslim leadership without arousing religious sentiments? In fact,
as far as Assam is concerned, hardly anyone of those who active-
ly organized the rally knew anything about the nature of the con-
flict except that Muslims were killed.
What was the history of Bodo-Muslim conflict in Assam?
Bodos are not killing Muslims because of their Muslimness but the
fundamental problem is of land. Bodos are in conflict with other
communities also like Adibashis, Santhals and others and they
have come in conflict with all these communities in the past.
Though it is not true that Bangladeshis are migrating in large num-
bers (this is largely the Sangh Parivar propaganda). Unfortunately
Bodos, in order to fulfill their ambition of Bodo-land and for evict-
ing Bengali Muslims and other ethnic communities from the four
districts of Bodo Territorial Council, are using this false propagan-
da for their own purposes. One can, of course, blame the
Congress Government for giving Bodos BTC to buy peace with
militant Bodo outfits. They should not have done so without taking
other ethnic communities in the area in confidence and giving
them proper representation as demanded by our democracy and
constitution.
As for Rohingya Muslims, it is the military government of
Myanmar which is to be blamed. I visited Rangoon after the recent
riots and interviewed a large number of Rohingya Muslims. No
such problem existed until 1981. They were treated as regular cit-
izens and had voting rights. It was the military government of
Myanmar which suddenly and without any proper reason, took
away their papers from them and tried to expel them from Rakhine
district of Western Myanmar. It treats these Muslims as foreign-
ers and wants Bangladesh to settle them in its territory which is
totally unjust. Rohingya Muslims have been in that province for
centuries and there is no case to describe them as outsiders. Most
of them had settled there during the Muslim rule. The military gov-
ernment of Myanmar has been killing Burmese of other provinces
too and killed several Buddhist monks also during pro-democracy
demonstrations.
It is true that some Buddhist monks have issued pamphlets
against Rakhine Muslims to show solidarity with their co-religion-
ists which they should not have done. But then like others
Buddhists, monks also are getting politicized as their pro-democ-
racy demonstrations show. But in both cases (i.e., Assam and
Rohingya), it is not part of any worldwide conspiracy to kill
Muslims as it is being propagated.
In Mumbai violence, media came under attack for no reason
except that provocative speeches were being made against
media. It was quite ill-advised. A wise leadership would rather try
to win over media rather than antagonize it this way. Also, one
cannot tar the media with the same brush. Print and electronic
media have different ideological and commercial approaches. A
blatant attack is totally wrong and even if a section of media is ide-
ologically against or indifferent to Muslim problems, the solution
does not lie in attacking its journalists or OB vans. At best, it is
foolish.
Urdu newspapers often write that let Ulama-e kiram (hon-
ourable Ulama) guide the Muslim Ummah and give it a lead. How
can one expect Ulama to provide leadership when they hardly
have any knowledge of the modern world and for whom provoking
religious sentiments is part of their orientation. It is not to say that
all Ulama are like this but a large number of Ulama - and this has
been proved repeatedly in political matters behave either in
opportunistic or emotional manner.
And let us remember all this happened in the holy month of
Ramadan. The ulama never tire of telling us that the aim of this
month of fasting is that we become more patient and able to con-
trol our anger and we must devote ourselves entirely to ibadat,
i.e.s acts of worship, compassion and charity. What was then the
hurry to take out this rally in this holy month when no fresh inci-
dents were taking place? The Assam situation had come under
control and what was urgently needed was to collect money,
clothes, shoes and medicines for those in relief camps in those
four districts.
In the holy month of charity they could have concentrated on
collecting relief for those unfortunate four lakh people who are rot-
ting in relief camps in most unspeakable conditions in Assams
BTC and adjoining areas. Some Bodos too have been killed in
retaliatory actions and quite a few Bodos are also living in relief
camps in as bad a condition as Bengali-speaking Muslims. As
good and compassionate Muslims, in this month of charity they
should adopt an inclusive approach and collect relief for Bodos
too. This is what the Holy Quran also requires them to do.
If instead of making it a conspiracy against Muslims, if they
had condemned killing of Bodos too and prayed for all it would not
have acquired such emotional proportions. Also the rally should
not have been exclusively a Muslim affair but a rally with the sup-
port of all sections of Indian society, i.e., Hindus, Christians,
Buddhists and all others - besides Muslims - to strengthen our
secular character. It was not only exclusively Muslim but organ-
ized by Raza Academy - representing Barelvi Muslims betraying a
a sectarian approach. Deobandis were to organize separately a
day after but that event was postponed because of violent turn
which the earlier rally took.
If we have to be against violence, and it should be our serious
commitment, we have to be more and more inclusive. Whenever
sectarian approach is adopted, it becomes easier to resort to vio-
lence and if it is inclusive of all sections it is not only more demo-
cratic but also likely to be more non-violent. Sectarian approach
results in a competitive approach while an inclusive approach is
always a cooperative approach.
The police is now saying the violence was pre-planned which
may result in harassment of many Muslim youth. It is shameful
that some rallyists molested women constables and seized
revolvers from them. The police may take revenge for this. Let us
hope police does not do so. But one must say the police had
shown a lot of restraint and Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik
himself had come and spoken from the platform appealing to
Muslims to show restraint in this holy month of Ramadan. Let us
hope wiser counsel will prevail and peace would not be disturbed.
(Secular Perspective)
If Muslim kings main motive was spread
of religion, then Muslims in the country
would not have remained a minority to this
day. If they had literally used swords to
spread their religion, the percentage of
Muslims in the Indian population would
have been 50 percent, if not more. To this
day, Muslims constitute less than 14 per-
cent of the countrys population.
Maulana (Hakeem) MOOSA QASMI, prominent religious scholar
and preacher (Ameer-e Tabligh) died at Muzaffar Nagar on 9
August after a prolonged illness. He was a patient of diabetes
and lever problem. Educated at Darul Uloom Deoband, he
served as Imam of a Masjid in Muzaffar Nagar for about 57
years. He was 79.
SHAKEEL AHMAD Khan, a former minister
of Bihar and national spokesman of Janta
Dal (United) died in a Delhi hospital on 17
August at the age of 70 years. He leaves
behind his widow and three daughters. His
body was taken by air to Patna en route his
native place for performing last rites.
Mrs. SHAFIQ FATEMA Shera, noted poet-
ess died in Hyderabad on 13 August after a protracted illness at
the age of 76 years. She leaves behind three sons. An authoress
of 3 anthologies of poems, she was honoured
with Ghalib Award.
The former vice chancellor of AMU,
PROF M.N. FARUQUI passed away on
24 August at his residence in Kanpur. He was
the VC from 1 September 1990 to 15
December 1994.
Syed RAFAT ALAM, former
Chief Justice of Allahabad and
Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal) High
Courts has been appointed
Chairman of Central
Administrative Tribunal. He has
taken over the charge of his new
assignment on 8 August. It may
be stated incidentally that this
Tribunal (CAT) was set up for
looking into and settlement of dispute arising from nomina-
tion and election of candidates for Lok Sabha and their serv-
ice conditions etc.
NAUSHAD AHMAD, previous chairman of Bihar State
Minorities Commission has been re-appointed Chairman of
the reconstituted Minorities Commission of the state. In addi-
tion to him, Padmshri Sister SUVIDHA Verghese is Vice
Chairperson and also CHARAN SINGH, Vice Chairman.
Other members of this Commission are: PRAHLAD KUMAR
Sircar, D.S. JAIN, MS. RAZIA KAMIL Ansari, ZAHEER
Malmali, LIAQAT ALI Mansoori, Dr. ISLAM Rahi, MUHAM-
MAD SHAMSHAD Alam and MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH.
FAISAL KHAN, 13-year old son of an autorickshaw driver of
Mumbais Ghat Kopar slum area won dance reality show,
Dance India Dance (DID) Lil (little) Champs Trophy on the
basis of public voting. Atotal of 5.61 crore votes were cast by
the viewers and the highest number of votes were cast in his
favour. He had no specialised training in dance, only a very
rudimentary training in the local, ordinary school in this slum
locality. A class VIII student of a local school, he has also
earned a scholarship of Rs. 10 lakh in this competition in
addition to a large number other prizes for his feat. He,
alongwith two runners-up, will take part in a dance event in
Bollywood film star Akshay Kumas film Oh my God which is
to be released shortly.
Dr. (Mufti) ZAHID ALI KHAN,
Associate Professor in AMUs
Department of Theology, has
been appointed new President
(Head) of this Department for
three years in place of Dr.
Abdul Khaliq. He (Dr. Zahid Ali
Khan) has taken over his new
charge.
NEWSMAKERS
12 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
MEN & WOMEN IN NEWS
OBITUARIES
MUNAWWAR Rana, prominent and popular
Urdu, Hindi poet was honoured with Vishisht
Rituraj Samman Award under Parampara
Kavita Parv 2012 on the occasion of a Kavi
Sammelan held at India Habitat Centre on 15
August. The Award consists of a cheque of Rs.
one lakh and a certificate. Though Munawwar
Rana belongs to Rai Bareilly, he spent large
part of his life in Kolkata and hence he com-
posed poetry in Bengali also.
Prof. GOPI CHAND Narang, famous Urdu crit-
ic, scholar and internationally known figure in
the world of Urdu has been honoured by
Pakistan government with its third highest civil-
ian Award, Sitara-e Imtiaz on the occasion of
that countrys Independence Day. Dr. Narang,
now 82, is an author of about 70 books. He has
written some books in English and Hindi also
and many of his books have been translated
into many Indian languages. The Award will be
given to him by the President of Pakistan on 23
March, Pakistans Republic Day.
Prof. HAFIZ ABDUL Mannan, HAFIZ SHAH
TAQI Anwar and Prof. KHAN MUHAMMAD
ATIF, scholar of Persian and Maulana Mufti
HEKEEM AHMAD HASAN Khan, Prof. Syed
KAFEEL AHMAD QASMI and Prof. SHAMS
TABREZ Khan scholar of Arabic alongwith
many scholars of Sanskrit and Pali languages
were honoured with Maharshi Badrayan Vyas
Samman Award by the President of India
Pranab Mukherjee in recognition of their valu-
able services and proficiency in their respective
languages. Their selection and names were
announced earlier also but prizes and scrolls of
honour were given at a function held on 15
August.
AEJAZ NABI Karigar, a noted poet and edu-
cationist of Sholapur (Maharashtra) and Prof.
MUHAMMAD SHAFI Chobdar of Social
Senior College of Arts & Commerce have been
honoured by Maharashtra State Urdu
Academy with its Award for their valuable serv-
ices in the field of education. In addition to
them, SHOAIB HASHMI, bold and fearless
journalist and ETVs Urdu representative has
been honoured by the Academy with Haroon
Rashid Award for journalism. These Awards
consist of Rs. 10,000 in cash, memento and a
certificate. Dr. Syed TABASSUM SULTANA
also was honoured with Award in recognition
of her services in the field of education. The
Awards were given to the awardees at a func-
tion held in Mumbai in the presence of minis-
ter Arif Naseem Khan, chief minister Prithvi
Raj Chahan and others.
S.P. JAVED SIRAJ of CBI is the lone Muslim
officer among the total of 92 personnel of dif-
ferent categories of police force like CBI, Delhi
Police, ITBP (Indo Tibetan Boarder Police),
CISF, BSF, CRPF, Home Guards, Civil
Defence etc. who have been honoured with
awards, medals, honours etc. on the occasion
Independence Day 2012. He has been hon-
oured with Presidents Police Medal.
AWARDS
Maulana Hasrat Mohani (1875-1951) was a romantic poet of
Urdu language, journalist, politician, parliamentarian and a fear-
less freedom fighter of the Indo-Pak Subcontinent. His real name
was Syed Fazlul Hasan. He was born in 1875 at Mohaan in
Unnao district of U.P.
He was a brilliant student as well as a topper in his first state
level exams. Later, he studied in Aligarh Muslim University, where
some of his colleagues were Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar,
Maulana Shaukat Ali, etc. His teachers in poetry were Tasleem
Lucknawi and Naseem Dehlvi. A few of his books are Kulliyat-e-
Hasrat Mohani (Collection of Hasrat Mohanis poetry), Sharh-e-
Kalam-e-Ghalib (Explanation of Ghalibs poetry), Nukaat-e-
Sukhan (Important aspects of poetry), Mushahidaat-e-Zindaan
(Observations in Prison), etc. A very popular ghazal sung by
Ghulam Ali, Chupke Chupke raat din was penned by Hasrat
Mohani.
Hasrat Mohani participated in the struggle for Indian
Independence and was jailed for many years by the British
authorities. He was the first person in Indian history who
demanded Complete Independence
(Azadi-e-Kaamil) in 1921 as he presided
over an annual session of the All India
Muslim League.
He was not only a practising Muslim
but also a strong supporter of the commu-
nist ideology, as he could see that British
could possibly be defeated by following
communist principles. Therefore, he was
among the founders of the Communist
Party of India. He was also imprisoned for
promoting anti-British ideas especially for
publishing an article against British policies
in Egypt, in his magazine Urdu-e-Mualla.
After Independence, unlike some Urdu
poets like Josh Malihabadi and Nasir
Kazmi and many Muslim leaders, he chose
to live in India rather than move to Pakistan
in order to represent the left-over Indian Muslims on various plat-
forms.
In recognition for his efforts, he was made a member of the
constituent assembly which drafted the Indian Constitution. But
unlike other members, he never signed it since he saw hypocrisy
towards Muslim minorities writ large in it.
According to Akhtar Payami, Hasrats poetic genius has been
acclaimed by many writers and critics. In the not too distant past
(beginning and the first half of the 20th century), Hasrat, Jigar
and Asghar formed a constellation of emerging poets in a crucial
period of Indias history. Major political developments were taking
place in the subcontinent and the sun was about to set on the
British Empire. As conscious members of society, poets and writ-
ers do not remain indifferent to the changes in their socio-politi-
cal milieu. Not only India but the whole world was in a state of
flux.
Maulana died on 13 May, 1951 in Lucknow. Hasrat Mohani
Memorial Society was founded by Maulana Nusrat Mohani in
1951. In Karachi, a Memorial Hall and Library have been estab-
lished by Hasrat Mohani Memorial Society. Every year, on his
death anniversary, a memorial meeting is held by this Trust as
well as many other organisations in India and Pakistan. Hasrat
Mohani Colony, at Korangi Town in Karachi, Pakistan, was
named after Maulana Hasrat Mohani.
HASRAT MOHANI
Palestine Conference in Cairo in 1938, (Clockwise from top): Chowdhery
Khaliquzzaman, Abdul Rehman Siddiqui, Hasrat Mohani
Nishat Unnisa Begum Hasrat Mohani
New Delhi: Muslim organisations led by Majlis
Ulama-e Hind took out a massive rally at Jantar
Mantar and Parliament Street here on the occa-
sion of Al Quds Day on the last Friday of
Ramadan (17 August) in support of justice to the
people of Palestine. The rally sent a clear mes-
sage to the Indian and Israeli governments that
Muslims of this country will in no case tolerate
the mischievous and barbarous acts of Israel
against the people of Palestine in general and
the Holy Al Aqsa Mosque/Jerusalem in particu-
lar.
The rally was also a clear warning to Israel
that its dream of greater Israel and demolition of
Al Aqsa Mosque in order to build a Jewish tem-
ple on its site would never be fulfilled.
Majlis Ulama-Hind is a Shia organisation. It
was able to get the support of other Muslim
organisations like All India Muslim Majlis-e
Mushawrat, Jamaat-e Islami Hind, Jamiat
Ulama-e Hind, Muslim Political Council and
Welfare Party of India. Apart from this, a large
number of people from Sunni populatin also par-
ticipated in the rally in order to express their sol-
idarity with the people of Palestine. Thus the
rally gave a clear message that Palestine is not
an issue only of Shia or Sunni but of all Muslims
everywhere in the world.
Maulana Jalal Haidar Naqvi, organiser of
the rally and Joint Secretary of Majlis Ulama-e
Hind said that Israel had let loose its cruelty and
barbarism on hapless Palestinian people right
from its creation and its ultimate aim is to create
a Greater Israel by including parts of Syria, Iraq,
Egypt and Hejaz. Maulana Naqvi warned that
Muslims will not rest till they succeed in their
objectives to bring justice to the people of
Palestine who have been displaced and dispos-
sessed by the Zionist project. He said that it was
strange and regrettable on the part of India to
have abandoned its traditional policy of friend-
ship towards Arab countries in general and
Palestine in particular and instead to strength its
relationship with Israel by allowing that artificial
country to invade Indian polity and markets. He
further added that the harmful effect of the
Israeli invasion is that ever since Israel opened
its embassy here, cases of terrorism are rising
in this country. Hence Muslims demand that
Israeli embassy in Delhi should be closed down
at the earliest.
Another speaker was Maulana Mohsin Ali
Taqvi, Imam of Shia Jama Masjid in Delhi. He
said that creation of Israel was the product of a
conspiracy by imperialist powers but it was a
pity that Muslims were not united against it at
that time or even now. He added that if Muslims
become united against Israel, this country would
be wiped out.
Jamiat Ulama-e Hinds Maulana Javed
Qasmi demanded that India should re-adopt
Nehru-Gandhi policy of friendship with Arab
countries. President of All India Muslim Majlise
Mushawrat, Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan said that
Muslims are very grateful to the visionary lead-
ership of the late Ayatullah Imam Khomaini who
gave the Umma a gift in the form of Al Quds
Day which reminds all of us that our First Qibla
is under occupation. He regretted that India
which was at one time leader of non-aligned
movement (NAM) became a puppet of a small
country (Israel) which is very unfortunate. He
referred to a recent cancellation of NAM meet-
ing in Palestine due to the blatant disregard of
the international norms by the Israeli govern-
ment. As regards the situation in Assam, Dr
Khan held both the central and Assam state
governments responsible for the fresh cases of
violence and killings. Dr Khan complained that
no body is talking about the large quantity of
sophisticated arms and ammunitions possessed
by Bodos and that Gogoi government also did
not fulfil its promise of enabling Muslims to
return to their homes safely by 15 August.
Dr Khan exhorted the Muslims to desist from
indulgence in self-grandiosity and lavishness
and should leave behind the mind set of lazi-
ness.
Dr Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, general secre-
tary of the Welfare Party, lamented that because
of Indias strategic relations with Israel, cases of
terrorism are taking place in this country.
Dr Tasleem Rahmani of Muslim Political Council
said that all problems of Muslims of the whole
world are linked with the problem of Palestine
and if Israel and its supporters fail, not only the
problem of Palestine will be solved but problems
of Muslims all over the world will also be solved.
He suggested economic boycott of Israel and its
supporters. He urged people to desist from buy-
ing Israeli and Americna products like Pepsi and
Coca Cola. As regards the news about atrocities
let loose on Muslims in Burma, he cautioned
that half of such news was false. Hence we
should be sensible in this matter but in any case
we should help our Muslim brethren there. The
rally culminated at the Parliament Street and a
memorandum of demands was submitted to the
Prim Minister of India.
NADIM AHMAD
SPECIAL REPORT
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 13
Creation of Israel is a conspiracy of imperialist powers
Mughal era artistic legacy on display in US
Washi ngt on: An
exhibition show-
casing the remark-
able artistic legacy
of Indias Mughal
era opened here
last month at the
Freer/Sackler gal-
leries, which own
one of the worlds
greatest collec-
tions of these
works.
Titled Worlds
within Worlds:
Imperial Paintings
from India and
Iran, the exhibi-
tion would display
through Sep 16,
50 of the finest
folios and paint-
ings made for
Persian rulers and
the Mughal
emperors Akbar,
Jahangir, and
S h a h
Jahan.
The
exhibition is also accompanied by the book The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal
Court by Milo Cleveland Beach, pre-eminent Mughal art historian and former director of
the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art.
This event, which coincided with Indias Independence Day, features traditional
music and dance performances, storytelling, art projects, curator-led tours, food, and cul-
minates in a rare screening of classical Bollywood film Mughal-e-Azam.
The exhibitions title, Worlds within Worlds, refers to the complex layering of multi-
ple images within single folios, their many references to Persian and European styles and
subjects and the emperors sense of self as world rulers, according to the gallery.
The greatest Mughal works on paper are intriguing amalgams of portraits, symbols
of sovereignty, illuminated borders and calligraphy that announce a distinctive imperial
sense of self and dynasty.
The second section focuses on the groundbreaking synthesis achieved by Persian
emigres and local Indian artists under Emperor Akbar (ruled 1556-1605).
The personal dynamism of Akbar and the Mughal fascination for capturing the
appearances of people and places shine throughout these foundational works of the
Mughal school.
Highlights include three dreamlike works by the renowned Farrukh Beg that demon-
strate how artists with distinctive styles contributed to the broader imperial image.
The exhibition concludes with a selection of superb folios produced for the albums of
Jahangirs son, Emperor Shah Jahan (1627-57).
Toxic
Waste
Muslims are Pro-Pakistan!
Return Burmese Refugees!
Madrasas are a threat!
Assam Muslims are intruders!
Etc., Etc.
MG/Yusuf
COMMUNITY NEWS
14 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
Twelve-year-old recites Quran in 12 hrs
Bhopal: Hafiz Muhammad Zabiullah, age 12, won applause from
listeners when he recited the entire Quran in twelve hours at
Darul Uloom Tajul Masajid. He had taken eight months to memo-
rise the holy text. During the entire recitation he neither faltered
nor did he forget any verse without looking at the text while Peer
Saeed Saheb, Maulana Ehsan Khan Nadvi and other clerics
watched him reciting. He was showered with gifts and praise from
the listeners. The young hafiz hails from Ahmad Nagar district of
Maharashtra.
Guj. Minister to face trial
Ahmedabad: Purushottam Solanki, Gujarat minister for fisheries,
shall face trial following an order by the state governor Dr. Kamla.
He is accused of involvement in a scam to the tune of Rs. 400
crores in a fishing contract. He is likely to resign any time. He is
the third minister in Modis cabinet following Mayaben Kodnani
and Amit Shah to facet trial.
Supreme Court orders Centre to treat conjoined twins
New Delhi: The Supreme court directed the central government to
air lift the conjoined twins Saba and Farah (16) and treat them at
AIIMS New Delhi within ten days. A Bench comprising Justices
K.S. Radha Krishnan and Deepak Misra passed an order to bring
them to Delhi. Earlier the court had directed the central govern-
ment to constitute a medical board and ensure their treatment.
However, the matter took a poignant turn and the court insisted
that they be treated at Patna and be provided monthly expenses
towards treatment and nutrition.
Madras HC sends Muslim bride with her Hindu husband
Madurai: Granting relief to a Muslim girl Madras High Court
allowed her to live with her Hindu husband on the ground that
being a major she cannot be forced otherwise by her parents.
Justice K. Venkatraman decided the case filed by 21 year old
K. Fatima. She filed a petition seeking police protection because
of the threats she had been receiving from her family. She feared
that she might be victimised under honour killing. Though her kin
were keen to take her back to her parental home but Fatima opted
to live with her husband. She was sent to her husbands home
under police protection. It may be recalled that K. Fatima a stu-
dent of engineering married S. Kannar her class fellow against
the wishes of her family in June.
Vanzara attacks Pandian in jail
Ahmedabad: One time friends Vanzara and Pandian have turned
frenzy now. Rajkumar Pandian accuses him of physical assault.
Pandian has objected to Vanzaras project of building a temple on
his own within the jail. He holds jail authorities guilty of violating
jail rules by allowing him to obtain construction material and
labourers. He sought information through RTI whether such ille-
gal activities could be permitted within the jail area. In an applica-
tion to jail superintendent, Pandian drew his attention to two
autorickshaws transporting construction material.
Unaided minority institutions to not exempt from RTE Act
New Delhi: After amending the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009
religious madrasas, pathshalas and all other educational institu-
tions being run on the pattern of unaided minority educational
institutions were exempted from the provisions and application of
RTE Act and Supreme Court also had endorsed it but after anoth-
er recent amendment in this Act and Presidents approval on 19
June 2012, all such educational institutions have lost their exemp-
tion. After the latest amendment, now only those educational insti-
tutions will be exempt in which purely religious education is
imparted. Under the latest amendment, hundreds of schools
which though are run by religious and linguistic minority organisa-
tions will no longer be exempt now because in addition to reli-
gious education they also provide modern education. A notifica-
tion to this effect will be issued by the central government soon.
It may be stated that milli and minority organisations had car-
ried on a campaign for about two years for their exemption from
the application of Right to Education Act 2009 under which free
and compulsory education was to be enforced. After vigorous
campaigns by milli and minority organisations against some pro-
visions of this Act government had agreed to exempt unaided
minority educational institutions from this Act and the Supreme
Court in its verdict had also exempted these schools from appli-
cation of this Act but now under the latest amendment, the previ-
ous amendment as well as the Supreme Courts verdict have
been superseded.
According to the Special Project Director of Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan, Sanjay Deshmukh after the issuance of government
notification, we will send circulars to all schools to the effect that
leaving aside madrasas and pathshalas etc., all schools (aided or
unaided) will have to implement the provisions of RTE Act and in
the case of its violation, strict action will be taken against them.
Science books to be published in Urdu
Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim Universitys Centre for the Promotion of
Science has entered into an agreement with the central govern-
ments Department of Science & Technologys institution Vigyan
Prasar for printing and publishing of science books in Urdu.
According to the Director of the Centre for Promotion of Science,
Dr. Fatema Shujatullah, under this agreement both the institutions
will help and cooperate with each other for printing and publishing
sciences general and syllabus books for teaching and popularis-
ing the education of science in Urdu medium schools and reli-
gious madrasas. The agreement was signed by Group Captain
(Retd.) Shujatullah Shamshad, Registrar of AMU on behalf of
AMU and Sandeep Barua, Director of Vigyan Prasar.
JMI to introduce Chinese language course
New Delhi: Jamia Millia Islamia will introduce Mandarin Chinese
course by the end of this year for its students in association with
Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre, New Delhi. This course will
subsequently be extended to the business community also. Two
other education centres of Taiwan are already working in India at
Jindal Global University and Amity University since 2011 and now
its third centre will be opened at Jamia Millia, New Delhi.
This was disclosed by Wenchyi Ong, representative of Taipei
Economic and Cultural Centre at a function in New Delhi when
scholarships were granted to 10 Indian students for study in that
country (Taiwan) starting in September 2012 for a graduate or
undergraduate Degree from that country. Under this scholarship
each student will get approximately Rs. 6.6 lakh per year. During
the past eight years the Taipei Economic & Cultural Centre has
granted such scholarships to about 200 Indian students in differ-
ent fields. At present there are about 50 thousand foreign stu-
dents in Taiwan of whom only about 500 are from India. Wenchyi
Ong says that the objective of granting these scholarships is to
increase the number of foreign students in that country and to
impart world class education to foreign students and to expose
them to rich Chinese culture so that after spending two or three
years in that country they may become cultural ambassadors for
that country. He says that because of the growing relationship
between India and Greater China, proficiency in Chinese lan-
guage would be an additional qualification and advantage to
Indian students who will find new opportunities there for their
bright future.
BJP comes forward for building of Eidgah boundary in Agra
Agra: BJP leaders have now declared their cooperation and sup-
port for building the boundary wall of Agras Shahi Eidgah. BJP
leader and former MLA of Fateh-abad, Giri Raj Kishore said that
the sanctity of a religious place or place of worship of followers of
any religion should be fully respected and used for that purpose
and nobody has any right to either desecrate it or illegally occupy
it. Blaming the district authorities he said that because of their
indifferent and dilly dallying attitude this problem (building of
boundary wall) has not been completed even after such a long
time. He assured that he is ready to fight, shoulder to shoulder,
along with Muslims, for building this boundary wall. Taunting
Samajwadi Party he said that this Party declares itself to be a
friend and well-wisher of Muslims but if under its rule, this bound-
ary wall was not built, it would be a matter of great shame.
Accusing the city unit of S.P. of complicating and delaying this
matter, he said that it was a fundamental right of Muslims which
must be given to them.
Christians gesture: a matter of introspection for Muslims
Baghpat: A Christian missionary here built a small pacca house
and gifted it to a poor, unemployed and homeless Muslim family.
The staff members, priest and team of the citys well-known
Christian missionary school, Christo Jyoti, after building this
house handed it over alongwith its key to Haroon, and his wife
Farzana at a small and simple function, at which many Muslims
were also present. Haroon, a handicapped, sick and jobless per-
son lived alongwith his wife and two children both of whom are
also handicapped in an old and dilapidated house in the citys
Eidgah muhalla. Seeing this, and also seeing that he got practi-
cally no help from others, the Christian missionary pitied him and
his family members, built the house and gave it to him. According
to sources this is almost a purely Muslim populated area adjacent
to the Eidgah and a large number of well-to-do and fairly influen-
tial Muslims also live in this locality. Amidst such a large popula-
tion of Muslims it is quite possible that some people, taking pity
on Haroon and his family, might have given some morsels and
left-overs or a few coins to them occasionally but the gesture
made by the Christian missionary and school, a non-Muslim enti-
ty should be enough to shake the conscience of Muslims and
compel them to introspect and also put them to shame, particular-
ly during the month of Ramzan.
Not only this, it is reported that this Christian missionary has
been rendering such humanitarian and charitable services in
other poor and backward Muslim localities. This missionary is
said to have set up an institution named Aasra Niketan for look-
ing after and taking care of handicapped persons / children. It is
reliably reported that almost all the handicapped inmates of this
Niketan are Muslim children, even young girls were brought from
South India and far off places and housed here. Their upbringing,
education, treatment etc. are borne by the missionary. If all this is
being done by the missionary purely from humanitarian consider-
ation without the ulterior intention of converting them to
Christianity, it is really laudable and a matter of deep introspection
for Muslims.
Criminals get benefit of doubt, go scot free
Azamgarh: A rally of Rashtriya Ulama Council (RUC), led by its
president Maulana Aamir Rashadi, was attacked by the area goon
Ramakant Yadav, a member of Parliament, and his gang on
12 August 2009. In the attack, a youth called Abdur Rahman was
killed and three others were injured. RUC filed an FIR against the
goon and his gang at Phoolpur police station accusing them of
murder and attempt to murder. Local police filed a chargesheet
against the four persons, Ramakant Yadav, Ghanshyam alias
Bhamshoo, Munnilal and Ubaidur Rahman alias Baidoo.
An Azamgarh court on 9 August set them free, giving them
benefit of doubt due to a discrepancy in the FIR and the post-
mortem report. The FIR said that the murder took place by rifle
bullets while the post-mortem report said that rifle bullets and
bomb splinters were recovered from the body of the person killed
during the attack.
RUC president Maulana Rashadi has announced that the
group will appeal in the high court against this unjust verdict. He
said that this is the first time that someone has dared to file an FIR
against goon Ramakant Yadav and took him to court. As a result,
he and his co-accused spent a year in jail during the court hear-
ings. Maulana Rashadi with his supporters visited the dead work-
ers family at village Sadarpur and reiterated his support and
determination to appeal against the lower court verdict.
12 AIIMS succesful candidates are Muslims from Kerala
New Delhi: For years, the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences,
Indias top medical college, entrance examination has been the
hunt for the best. Students from Malabar, the Muslim-dominated
northern region of Kerala, have been cracking the code consis-
tently for the last five years, improving each year to make it to the
much sought-after medical institute.
Of the 72 who cleared the MBBS entrance this year - there
were more than 80,000 candidates - Kerala accounted for 27, a
healthy 37.5 per cent. Twelve of the 27 are Muslims. And the
majority hail from districts across Malabar - Malappuram,
Kozhikode, Kannur, Palakkad and parts of Thrissur. The count of
students from Kerala has been increasing steadily at AIIMS - 12
in 2008, 16 in 2009, 14 in 2010, 25 in 2011, 27 in 2012.Students
say the medicine craze is a fairly recent phenomenon in the
region. Most say they will be the first doctors in their families.
Anshida K, daughter of a businessman from Malappuram
who made it to AIIMS this year, said: For so many years, we pro-
duced the highest numbers of nurses from South Kerala. Now, we
will give the country doctors as well.
Anthropologist Vinod Krishnan T Y, associate programme
coordinator with the Centre for Research and Education for
Social Transformation (CREST) - an autonomous institute
under the Kerala government - which organised an orientation
programme for first-year AIIMS students, said the growing
numbers from suburban regions of Kerala is a remarkable
trend. He said it could be attributed to the introduction of the
OBC quota in the non-creamy layer. Almost the entire OBC
quota is taken by Muslims from North Kerala, a trend which we
do not see in other reservations like the SC and ST categories.
The aspiration levels in the community are clearly high, and
they are capitalising on this opportunity, he said. In the 2012
batch, nine of the 19 seats in the OBC quota have been taken
by Muslims from Kerala. A majority of the successful candi-
dates dropped a year after school to enrol full-time at coach-
ing institutes.
The girls say that being away from home could have been
an issue five years ago but now nothing beats attending the
best medical college in the country.
New Delhi: Delhi Waqf Board, after several meetings between its
officers and those of DDA, finally succeeded in getting formal
possession of the alternative land for construction of new Masjid
Noor after payment of Rs. 23,77000 to DDA, more than three
months ago on 3 May 2012. It may be stated in this connection
that the original Noor Masjid which existed in Jungpura locality of
Delhi for about 35 years was claimed by DDA to have been built
on its land and was demolished by it (DDA) on 3 January 2011.
Even after payment of Rs. 23,77,000 by Delhi Waqf Board DDA
was somewhat hesitant to hand over the said land and was dilly
dallying. However, after several meetings with the Delhi Waqf
Board officials it finally agreed to give the letter of possession of
this land which measures 400 sq. yards. According to Delhi Waqf
Boards CEO Ahsan Abid, after getting possession of this land,
preliminary steps have been taken for the construction of a Noor
Masjid and a committee has been constituted which will super-
vise and take all other steps for the reconstruction of a model
Noor Masjid equipped with many modern facilities. He said that a
plan is being prepared by architects who have already seen and
inspected the proposed site of this mosque.
In order to avoid any kind of dispute and controversy, Delhi
Waqf Board has decided to take the responsibility of building this
mosque on itself and no other person or organisation, even vol-
untary labour, would be allowed for building of this mosque. The
Board has also made it clear that the construction of the mosque
(Masjid Noor) and its administration in future will be directly under
its control.
As stated above, the 35-year old Noor Masjid in Jungpura
was demolished by the Delhi Development Authority in January
2011 leading to lot of agitation and protests by Muslims. The mat-
ter also went to court which gave its verdict in favour of DDA. The
court verdict also provided for an alternative land to be given by
DDA to Delhi Waqf Board, payment for which was to be made by
Waqf Board. (NAAnsari)
Delhi Waqf Board finally gets possession of
land for Noor Masjid
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 15
COMMUNITY NEWS
138 year old lady to fasts Ramadan
Meerut: 138-year old Sagheeran is still going strong and despite
her age does not miss fasts during Ramzan. She claims that she
began fasting from the age of 13 and continued the practice for
the past 125 years. She helps everyone in the family during the
day in the chores, out of her six sons three have died while the
surviving Saeed is 90 years old. Her grandson Ishtiyaq is 60. She
enjoys betel leaf (paan) after a diet of lentil and bread.
300-year-old shrine 'sold' to realty developer
Mumbai: Inmates of Mumbai Musafirkhana and residents of
Crawford Market are angry over the sale of a 300-year old shrine
to a realty estate developer. Sufi Saint Al Haj Syed Muhammad
Ali Shah Qadari's shrine is in an area of 184 sq. metres and had
been in much demand by the realty sharks. The area has a com-
plex used for residential purposes as well as a few shops.
Caretaker of the shrine Syed Mohsin Qadari sold this area to
Muhammad Ali Patel for Rs. 42 lakh in the year 2010. He (Syed
is at present absconding after the sale. This piece of land is val-
ued at crores. Residents have approached the Charity
Commissioner because religious places do not fall under the
jurisdiction of Waqf Board. Even the Charity Commissioner was
not aware of the transaction and has approached the High Court
to cancel the deal. It may be recalled that the shrine is recognised
as a heritage site and served as a relief centre during the
Bombay riots in 1993.
Real sadbhavna: Hindu allows namaz in his shop
Ahmedabad: A devout Muslim does not miss his prayer whatev-
er might be the circumstance. This was demonstrated by a bleed-
ing rickshaw driver after an accident. Shahbuddin (40 years) with
serious injuries on the head and all over the body wanted to
express his gratitude to Allah for saving his life. Shopkeepers of
the area took him to a safer place and gave him water. Unable to
sit properly he requested them to allow him to say his prayer. A
shopkeeper instantly made arrangement by shifting his wares. By
the time he completed his prayer an ambulance was called and
he was rushed to hospital. This sadbhavna demonstrated by
Ashwinbhai proprietor of Krishna Electricals is proof of the good-
will for mankind.
Ketan Tirodkar in CBI custody
Ahmedabad: Mumbai journalist Ketan Tirodkar was arrested by
the CBI. This is the first arrest by CBI investigating the Sadiq
Jamal encounter. Police officers from Gujarat and Mumbai
involved in the case are also likely to be arrested soon. Ketan
Tirodkar had claimed that he had a meeting with Sadiq in Dubai
where he had been working as an employee of Tariq Parveen, a
person close to Daud. Daya Naik, the encounter specialist of
Mumbai police, had declared him a "fit" target for an encounter in
2002 when he arrived in Mumbai. The two together prepared a
profile of Sadiq Jamal and handed it over to the Gujarat police.
On the basis of this confession Sadiq's brother Shabbir Jamal
filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court challenging the authen-
ticity of the encounter. The High Court assigned the investigation
to the CBI.
Justice M.R. Shah of Gujarat High Court ordered Ketan to
report before the court following which he reported alongwith his
advocate. He was taken in the evening to the Gandhi Nagar
office and arrested under section 41 (1) which empowers police
to arrest without a warrant. According to CBI sources, encounter
specialist of Gujarat police and a close associate in the crime
branch PI, who retired as ACP after promotion, are likely to be
arrested soon. They are to be arrested alongwith the Mumbai
police encounter specialist.
Shoukat dies of neglect in Vadodara prison
Vadodara: Shoukat, a heart patient undergoing life imprisonment
in Vadodara central jail in Godhra-Sabarmati case died of a heart
attack. No medical aid could be provided because, Sunday is a
holiday. Members of the deceased's family accuse jail authorities
of negligence. Shoukat alias Bhano Faroukbhai Patalia (35
years) was taking a siesta after lunch. All of a sudden, he, felt
pain in the chest and began sweating profously. Other inmates
made a lot of hue and cry and he was rushed to the hospital.
However, there was not a single doctor on duty because it was a
Sunday. He was later on rushed to Sayaji Hospital where he was
declared brought dead.
Shahina bags seven gold medals and five cash prizes
Ahmedabad: Contrary to popular myth that Muslim clerics deny
modern education to their wards Hafiz Qari Ahmad Ali Murshid Ali
Shaikh ensured proper education of his four children - a son and
three daughters. Shaikh is an Imam at the Sarkhej Road
Fatehwadi mosque. His youngest daughter, Shahina, made the
family proud by getting 80.94 percent marks in TY BSc. Shahina
won seven gold medals and five cash prizes at the Sheth
Ranchhod Lal Acharat Lal College of Science. Studying M.Sc
(Maths) she intends to obtain a PhD and serve as a college
teacher.
Bhuj craftsman builds mud replica of Aina Mahal
Bhuj: Aina Mahal built 250 years ago is a living monument to the
ancient glory of royal days. However, a craftsman, Abdreman Ali
Mamad, built a mud replica of the palace in two and a half months
recreating the past splendour. Though Rajasthani craftsmen are
recognised for their stone sculptures this mud craft is confined
only to Bhuj having its link to the Harappa Mohinjodero civilisa-
tion. Ali Mamad is a Muslim potmaker who maintains the past tra-
dition.
Lance Naik Aashiq Ali in Pak jail for 41 years
New Delhi: Lance Naik Aashiq Ali who was declared a martyr dur-
ing the 1971 Indo-Pak war is believed to be alive and is in a Pak
jail for the past 41 years. A list published in newspaper obtained
through RTI has his name among the prisoners. It may be
recalled that the family had received a telegram on 15 December
1971 that Aashiq Ali was among the missing soldiers. However,
four days later, another telegram was received which informed
about his martyrdom. His wife Khatoon and brother Ali Sher
(retired assistant post-master) cite a similar case in which a
declared martyr Aarif returned home in 1999 after the Kargil war.
Such an incident makes the relatives believe that the soldier is
alive. The family has drawn the attention of the Prime Minister
and Pakistan High Commissioner. They received only assurance
of further investigation. Aashiq Ali, resident of Lukhrada village in
UP joined the army in 1961 at the age of 20 and has been miss-
ing since 1971 war.
HC directs govt to seek Satish's expertise in Ishrat case
Ahmedabad: A bench of Gujarat High Court comprising Justices
Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari directed the state govern-
ment to ensure Satish Verma's assistance while investigating the
Ishrat probe. The CBI had sought permission to obtain Verma's
help. The court directed the government to provide Verma's
expertise for a period of four months. CBI had appealed against
the police enquiry undertaken so that the central agency could
continue the probe with Verma's assistance. This will bring sev-
eral vital facts to light.
House collapse renders six children orphans
Ujjain: In a tragic house collapse a couple died leaving six chil-
dren behind as orphans. An old house collapsed due to incessant
rains and killed Muhammad Sajid s/o Jamil (40) and his wife
Nasreen Bi (38) at 2 a.m. All the six children were buried under
the debris. Out of the six, two were referred to Indore hospital
while the four others were admitted to the district hospital. What
makes the tragedy more poignant is the fact that Sajid and
Nasreen had been the guardians of the four children whose par-
ents had expired earlier. While Sonu (11) and Najira (6) are the
children of the deceased couple, Muskan (8), Alishah (7), Faizay
and Nazneen (14) are the children of Nasreen's sister who had
expired earlier.
Dalit Christians and Muslims observe Black Day
New Delhi: Dalit Muslims and Christians observed Black Day on
10 August at Gol Dakkhana here against the Presidential Order
of 1950 which discriminated and justified reservation for Dalits on
religious grounds -- it approved reservation to scheduled caste
Hindus but denied the same to scheduled caste non-Hindus i.e.
Muslims and Christians, though there is no restriction of religion
under Art. 341. The Black Day was organised by Church activists
who are spearheading this legal and political battle for years.
Incharge of BJP's minority department, Dr. J.K. Jain, said at this
rally that the BJP minority department from the very beginning is
in favour of granting reservation to Muslims and Christians under
Art. 341. He said that a year ago our national executive commit-
tee meeting held in Bangalore passed a resolution in favour of
granting reservation to Muslim and Christian Dalits. Lok
Janshakti Party general secretary Abdul Khaliq said that Dr. JK
Jain should ask his party to make its stand clear in Parliament on
this issue. Abdul Khaliq took the government and Parliament to
task and questioned the Supreme Court's style of functioning. He
said that it is the misfortune of this country that whatever Praveen
Togadia says is followed not only by Parliament and government
but also by the Supreme Court. It may also be stated in this con-
nection that the union cabinet has adopted a resolution regarding
the Presidential Order (of 1950) under Art. 341 that it will conduct
a statewise survey and seek the views of different states to know
which strata of people come in this category. After this exercise,
the central government will seek the views of the general public
and because of this reason the Union government has not so far
sent its reply to the Supreme Court despite the passage of eight
years over SCs order to the government to file its reply. Abdul
Khaliq suggested that the Supreme Court should not wait for the
central government's reply and take up this case for hearing on
the basis of its merit so that justice could prevail. AIMMM
President Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan too spoke on the occasion and
supported the demand.
Constitution amendment demanded for Muslim quota
Lucknow: UP minister for urban development and minorities
affairs Muhammad Azam Khan has demanded the Congress-led
central government to amend the Constitution to give reservation
to Muslims in government jobs. Talking to mediapersons here on
11 August he said that many commissions and committees
including Sachar Committee have stated that the condition of
Muslims is even worse than that of Dalits but in spite of all this,
the Congress has always adopted a double standard policy
regarding reservation to Muslims and it never talked about
amending the Constitution to facilitate this. He said that when the
Supreme Court in its verdict had declared the granting of reser-
vation for promotion as unconstitutional and rejected it, there was
a big ruckus and uproar in Parliament on 9 August and after this
uproar the Congress had declared that it will introduce an amend-
ment bill in Parliament on 27 August to grant and enforce reser-
vation to Dalits. He asked when Dalits can be given the benefit of
reservation for promotion, why the Constitution cannot be
amended to give reservation to Muslims, who are backward edu-
cationally, economically, socially, in fact in all respects?
Iftar party for rickshaw-pullers
New Delhi: Hundreds of rickshaw-pullers residing in Jamia
Nagar area of the national capital were guests of Human
Welfare Foundation for an Iftar and dinner party on 11 August
on the sprawling ground of Milli Model School. About 600 rick-
shaw-pullers turned up to the party. HWF had distributed 750
invitation cards. After Iftar, Maghrib prayer was offered at the
site. Then an orator from among the volunteers gave a ser-
mon in which he stressed on obeying the basic teachings of
Islam. Soon after the speech, the guests were served hot
biryani. At the end each of the 600 guests was given a packet
consisting one kurta-pyjama.
New Delhi: Delhi government, after court's order, has released
Rs. 3 crores for payment of balance amounts of salary arrears
to 58 part time Urdu teachers of Delhi Municipal Corporation's
schools. Delhi Urdu Academy has been given the responsibility
of distributing the amount among the 58 part time Urdu teachers
of Corporation schools.
It may be stated in this connection that 58 part time Urdu
teachers of MCD schools had filed a complaint petition in a Delhi
court that they are being paid half salaries of what is being paid
to permanent teachers. In response to this petition, the court in
its verdict in September 2010 had directed that salaries of part
time Urdu teachers be increased with retrospective effect from
the year 2000 and the arrears be paid to them at the earliest.
Delhi government, however, ignored the court's order and did
not pay the arrears to (part-time) teachers. Hence a complaint
was again made to the court on behalf of part time Urdu teach-
ers, in response to which the court issued notices of contempt of
court to the Delhi government and Urdu Academy on 13 March
2012 for non-implementation of its order of payment of arrears
to them and also asked for their reply (for non payment) within
four weeks. After getting contempt of court notice, Delhi govern-
ment as an interim payment, released an amount for payment of
Rs. 50,000 t0 each teacher and told the court in reply to its
notice that the balance amounts would be paid to these teach-
ers by the end of August (2012).
In fulfilment of its commitment to given the court (for pay-
ment of remaining amounts to teachers by August) Delhi gov-
ernment released Rs. 3 crores in the first week of this month
(August) to Delhi Urdu Academy which has been made
responsible for distribution of arrears to part-time Urdu teach-
ers. Secretary of Delhi Urdu Academy, Anees Azmi confirmed
that Rs. 3 crores released by the Delhi government has been
received by the Academy and the statements of arrears of
each (part time) Urdu teacher have almost been completed
and the cheques of arrears will be deposited in the respective
bank accounts of teachers before Eid. It is considered that
each such teacher will get about Rs. 4 to 5 lakh as arrears.
However, according to subsequent news, it was reported
that when the Urdu Academy asked the concerned Urdu
teachers to send their advance signatures in token of receipt
of the amount of arrears (which is the normal procedure in
government offices) at least seven of these teachers accused
the Urdu Academy of cheating and fraudulent procedure in
calculating their arrear amounts. One of them, Ms. Samina
Iqbal, a primary school teacher while accusing the Urdu
Academy of cheating them said that it has not acted in accor-
dance with the court's directive. She said that the court had
directed that part time (Urdu) teachers be paid half the salary
of newly appointed teachers and their arrears should also be
calculated on this basis whereas the arrears that the Urdu
Academy has calculated are very small. She says that the
arrears of TGT (Trained Graduate Teacher) from the year
2000 if calculated as per court's directive, should be at least
Rs. 15 lakh and for primary teachers it should be about Rs. 9
lakh whereas the Academy is not giving even half of these
amounts. She said that when we ask for details of calcula-
tions, the Academy refuses to give these to us. She and
many others have refused to send their signatures in
advance and also to receive the cheques for arrear. (NA
Ansari)
Delhi govt to pay arrears of MCD's Urdu teachers
INTERNATIONAL
16 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
Another agenda-driven survey by the PEW
ABDUS SATTAR GHAZALI
It is a well-established fact that the wording of the questions, the
order in which they are asked and the number and form of alter-
native answers offered can influence results of polls or surveys
which are sophisticated propaganda tools. From its inception a
century ago, and in its current construction, the terrain of public
opinion polls is far from being neutral.
This applies to the latest survey results of the PEW Institute
survey The Worlds Muslims: Unity and Diversity, released on
August 9, 2012.
According to the PEW survey, the worlds 1.6 billion Muslims
are united in their belief in God and the Prophet Muhammad and
are bound together by such religious practices as fasting during
the holy month of Ramadan and almsgiving to assist people in
need. But they have widely differing views about many other
aspects of their faith, including how important religion is to their
lives, who counts as a Muslim and what practices are acceptable
in Islam, according to the survey.
The latest PEW survey is based on more than 38,000 face-
to-face interviews conducted in over 80 languages with Muslims
in 39 countries and territories that collectively are home to rough-
ly two-thirds (67%) of all Muslims in the world. The survey
includes every country that has a Muslim population of more than
10 million, except those (such as China, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia
and Syria) where political sensitivities or security concerns pre-
vented opinion research among Muslims.
Perhaps, one of the most intriguing findings of the survey
was hidden in the subtitle of the report - Core Beliefs - which said
that 46 percent Muslims of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
and 41 percent Muslims of Guinea Bissau say that the Quran is
not a word of God.
Interestingly, the PEW report pointed out that the question if
the Quran is the word of God was asked only in the sub-Saharan
Africa where almost 25 percent Muslims in Kenya, Chad,
Mozambique and Uganda and about 20 percent Muslims in
Djibouti, Ethiopia, Liberia and Senegal do not consider the Quran
a word of God.
It is a common knowledge that just as a Chrisitian cannot call
himself/herself a Christian unless he or she believes in Christ,
similarly a Muslim cannot call himself/herself a Muslim unless he
or she believes in the divinity of the Quran.
One may ask why the PEW researchers asked this question
from the Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa? Why not in the Muslim
majority countries like Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Interestingly, only 1.5 percent population of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo is Muslim and around 35 percent adhered
to the faith of Islam in Guinea Bissau.
The results of the latest PEW survey may be read in the con-
text of the current anti-Islam and anti-Muslim environment in the
country. Not to mention the Islamophobia in the 2012 election
campaign and the suggestion of David Yerushalmis Society of
Americans for National Existence (SANE) to banish Islam from
America by making adherence to Islam a felony punishable by 20
years in prison, the semi-official US think tank, the Rand
Corporation in March 2004 suggested that the Quran is a legend.
The Rand Corporation report titled Civil Democratic Islam:
Partners, Resources, and Strategies pleaded that in order to
promote the US policy objectives we should support the
Modernist Muslims who believe that the Quran is a legend.
Not surprisingly, in December 2004, another Rand
Corporation study suggested that Sunni, Shiite and Arab, non-
Arab divides should be exploited to promote the US policy objec-
tives in the Muslim world. The majority of the worlds Muslims
are Sunni, but a significant minority, about 15 percent of the glob-
al Muslim population, are Shiites.. The expectations of Iraqi
Shiites for a greater say in the governance of their country pres-
ents an opportunity for the United States to align its policy with
Shiite aspirations for greater freedom of religious and political
expression, in Iraq and elsewhere, the study said.
The Dec 2004 Rand study - titled U.S. Strategy in the
Muslim World After 9/11 - was conducted on behalf of the US Air
Force. One of the primary objective of the study was to identify
the key cleavages and fault lines among sectarian, ethnic,
regional, and national lines and to assess how these cleavages
generate challenges and opportunities for the United States.
Similarly, the latest PEW survey asked if you are a Sunni
Muslim or a Shiite Muslim. Under the title Sectarian Differences
Vary in Importance, the survey finds that sectarian identities,
especially the distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims,
seem to be unfamiliar or unimportant to many Muslims. This is
especially true across Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as
in Central Asia, where medians of at least 50% describe them-
selves as just a Muslim rather than as a follower of any partic-
ular branch of Islam. Substantial minorities in sub-Saharan Africa
and Southeast Asia also identify as just a Muslim.
Sectarian identities appear to be particularly relevant in
South Asia and the Middle East-North Africa region, where
majorities identify as Sunnis or Shiites. In the Middle East and
North Africa, moreover, widespread identification with the Sunni
sect is often coupled with mixed views about whether Shiites are
Muslims, the study pointed out. In a multi-part survey question,
the PEW first asked if an individual was Muslim, and if yes, if they
were Sunni, Shiite or something else.

The Worlds Muslims: Unity and Diversity, is not the first

agenda-driven survey of the PEW Institute. Its most mislead-
ing survey is regarding the estimate of Muslim population of
America. The PEW survey claims that the current population of
Muslim Americans is no more than 2.75 million. Not surprisingly,
it is basing this calculations on its own 2007 survey that estimat-
ed the Muslim American population at 2.4 million which was clos-
er to the estimates announced by the American Jewish
Committee in October 2001.
The AJC study - titled Estimating the Muslim Population in
the United States - claimed that the best estimate of Muslims in
the United States is 2.8 million at most, compared to the 6 or 7
million figure used by many researchers and Muslim organiza-
tions.
The PEW surveys, just like the AJC report, seem to undercut
the influence of American Muslims. It looks another desperate
attempt to discount the role of American Muslims.
The PEW survey of 2007, titled Muslim Americans: Middle
Class and Mostly Mainstream, claimed to be the most extensive,
covers the views of 1,050 Muslims interviewed in English, Arabic,
Urdu, and Farsi. According to Luis Lugo, director of the Pew
Forum, the Washington-based organization spent $1 million on
the poll. It paid $50 to each of the 1,050 Muslims surveyed.
The PEW survey of 2011, titled, Muslim Americans: No
Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism, is based
on the interviews with 1,033 Muslim American. Interviews were
conducted by telephone between April 14 and July 22, 2011 by
the research firm of Abt SRBI. Interviews were conducted in
English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu.
Associated Press reporting the survey result said the find-
ings offer an uncommon portrait of the Muslim American commu-
nity, which Pew estimates at roughly 2.75 million, or nearly 1 per-
cent of the U.S. population.
The PEWs misleading demographic figures of American
Muslims already made an entry into Wikipedias article on
American Muslim population estimates. Pew numbers are now
quoted as authentic reference
when estimate of American
Muslims is given.
Religious denominations,
like all interest groups, can gain
or lose political clout based on
perceptions of their size, accord-
ing to J. Gordon Melton, director
of the Institute for the Study of
American Religion in Santa
Barbara, Calif. In the case of the
U.S. Muslim community, Melton
says, its efforts to influence poli-
cy in the Middle East would get a
boost if it were viewed as being
larger than the countrys Jewish
population, which is estimated at
6 million. Its a political question:
How does it sway votes? he
argued.
The American Jewish Committees executive director David
Harris has warned that the increasingly visible American Muslim
lobby posed a challenge to U.S.-Israel relations. In an article
published by the Jerusalem Report in May 2001, Harris urged
American Jewry to unite with Israel to battle against the growing
Arab and Muslim lobbies here and the challenge they present to
long-standing U.S. support for Israel. Harris cited the myth of
high Muslim population figures as one tactic Muslims are using to
advance their position.
The American Jewish Committee and other groups estimate
the number of Jews in this country is about 6 million. Six million
has a special resonance, Harris wrote in the Jerusalem Report
magazine. It would mean that Muslims outnumber Jews in the
U.S. and it would buttress calls for a redefinition of Americas her-
itage as Judeo-Christian-Muslim, a stated goal of some Muslim
leaders.
The American Jewish Committee survey of Muslim popula-
tion was conducted by Tom W. Smith of the National Opinion
Research Center in Chicago who questioned the study, The
Mosque in America: ANational Portrait, released in April 2001 by
the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The CAIR study reported that the number of mosques rose
by about 25 percent, to more than 1,200, from 1994 to 2000.
Based on reports of attendance at some mosques, researchers
estimated the number of American Muslims at 6 million to 7 mil-
lion. The project surveyed individual mosques, finding that 340
adults and children participated at an average mosque and that
another 1,629 were associated in any way with the average
mosques activities, yielding a figure of 2 million Muslims. The
authors then adjusted the estimate to 6 million to 7 million over-
all to take into account family members and unaffiliated Muslims.
Based in part on that report, most media organizations, as
well as the White House and the State Department, have said
that there are at least 6 million Muslims in the country.
The American Mosque 2011 Survey
CAIRs 2001 study findings were reaffirmed by another major
survey of the Mosques in the United States. On February 29,
2012 a comprehensive study of the mosques - The American
Mosque 2011: Basic Characteristics of the American Mosque,
Attitudes of Mosque Leaders - was released.
Sponsors of the U.S. Mosque Survey 2011 include the
Hartford Institute for Religion Research (Hartford Seminary), the
Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies
(ASARB), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the
Islamic Society of North American (ISNA), the Islamic Circle of
North America (ICNA), and the International Institute of Islamic
Thought (IIIT).
The U.S. Mosque Survey 2011 is part of a larger study of
American congregations called Faith Communities Today
(FACT), which is a project of Cooperative Congregational
Studies Partnership, a multi-faith coalition of denominations and
faith groups.
One of the major finding of the study is related to the estimat-
ed population of American Muslims. The study finds:
Muslims who attend Eid Prayer (the high holiday prayers
after Ramadan and Hajj) increased from about 2 million in 2000
to about 2.6 million in 2011. The total Muslim population cannot
be determined by this figure, but it does call into question the low
estimates of 1.1-2.4 million Muslims in America. If there are 2.6
million Muslims who pray the Eid prayer, then the total Muslim
population should be closer to the estimates of up to 7 million.
It may be recalled that the former Congressman, Paul
Findley, in his book Silent No More: Confronting Americas False
Images of Islam, estimates that about 3.2 million Muslims turned
out for vote and 65 percent voted for President Bush in
November 2000 elections. According to Mr. Findley, Best esti-
mates put the national Muslim population at seven million, 70 as
the percentage of those eligible to vote, and 65 as the percent-
age of those eligible who actually voted. This means that the
national turnout of Muslims on Nov.7, 2000 came to 3.2 million.
It is important not to overlook the positive aspects of the
Gallup and PEW surveys which clearly showed that American
Muslims are mainstream, highly educated, middle-class people
who believe that hard work pays off. It also confirmed that, over-
all, American Muslims have a positive view of the larger society.
They are overwhelmingly satisfied with their lives in the United
States, and most say their communities are excellent or good
places to live.
Not surprisingly, the Associated Press, reporting about the
latest American Mosques study tried to give credence to the
biased PEW estimates about the population of American
Muslims while undermining the estimates of the latest Mosque
study. The AP report said: the estimates of the total American
Muslim population have become a contentious issue as Muslims
seek to have a voice in public life. The U.S. Census does not ask
about religion. Pew conducted a survey last year that estimated
the American Muslim community encompassed 2.75 million peo-
ple, or nearly 1 percent of the U.S. population, a finding similar to
that of other recent surveys. Bagbys 2000 report had estimated
the U.S. Muslim population to be as high as 7 million, a number
widely criticized as inflated. In this latest report, Bagby did not
report a definitive population number, but stood by his earlier
assertion that the United States could be home to as many 7 mil-
lion Muslims.
Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America
(www.journalofamerica.net) Email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com
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The results of the latest PEW survey
may be read in the context of the cur-
rent anti-Islam and anti-Muslim envi-
ronment in the country. Not to men-
tion the Islamophobia in the 2012
election campaign and the suggestion
of David Yerushalmis Society of
Americans for National Existence
(SANE) to banish Islam from America
by making adherence to Islam a
felony punishable by 20 years in
prison, the semi-official US think tank,
the Rand Corporation in March 2004
suggested that the Quran is a legend.
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 17
INTERNATIONAL
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KALEEM KAWAJA
The violent attack and killings in the Sikh temple in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, and the burning down of a mosque in Joplin,
Missouri, within one week during August 2012, by extremist anti-
minority, anti-colored people and white racist individuals, demon-
strates the proliferation and increased volume of the white hate
groups in the US.
It should be noted that these two violent attacks are perhaps
the very first attacks on places of worship of minorities in US
since 1965, when the racial reform laws were enacted and the
American society began liberalizing. More than anything, it may
also demonstrate a reaction from a segment of the white
American population to the rapid racial, social, cultural, liberal-
ized changes that have occurred in the American society in the
short span of the last 45 years.
In the large and very diverse 300 million US population,
where gun control laws are very lax, some psychologically
deranged individual going berserk and shooting people in public
did occur occasionally over the years. But in the last three years
the occurrence of such public violence is becoming increasingly
frequent. The violent attack on Congresswoman Giffords election
rally in Arizona in 2011, the July 2012 shooting inside a movie
house in Colorado are some examples of the recent upsurge of
violence on innocent civilians. Are these incidents driven by the
spread of hate emanating from the anger of the extremist White
Americans against the growth of unbridled social diversity in US?
Rapid Expansion of cultural and racial diversity
The conclusion of World War II heralded a complete power shift
among the nations of the world. Britain, France and Germany that
had been global superpowers and had dominated the political,
social and economic affairs on planet earth, stopped being so,
and in their place we saw the rise of a new giant - United States
of America. By late 1940s, a large number of individuals with
diverse nationalities from European countries had now made US
their home. US government and society embraced the social,
intellectual and cultural diversity that these folks brought.
Together, they helped the evolution of a diverse and dynamic
American culture. The Soviet Union that rose as an equal chal-
lenge to the US imploded under its own weight in late 1980s,
leaving the US as the only global superpower.
In 1965, another significant social revolution occurred in
America. The US Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and its
Affirmative Action program to ensure that the long oppressed
Black Americans, the Negroes, were encouraged with equal
opportunities in employment, education and social avenues that
they had been hitherto restricted from. Also in 1965, the US
Congress liberalized the Immigration Act, allowing immigrants
from Asian and African countries to migrate to the US and get the
same social opportunities that were hitherto available to the
European migrs.
The institutionalizing of the above-mentioned reforms in the
US laws opened a floodgate of opportunities to people from the
third world to have a tryst with destiny in America. In a true
sense, US, a vast continent-size country with big landmass,
many resources and not a high population, became the land of
opportunity. US population grew from 194 million in 1965 to 311
million in 2011. The US citizens who had been living there for
centuries, even though a bit skeptical about the flood of immi-
grants of diverse colors, ethnic backgrounds and values, did give
space to the new immigrants to make their contributions and reap
rewards in various avenues of the society. At the same time,
America continued to be a melting pot where migrs melted
their cultures and mores in the American mainstream, thereby
keeping America different and more diverse than other White
European countries.
Part of the immigrants from the Asian and African countries
were people who were Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists -
religious faiths hitherto unknown in America. In due course of
time, these immigrants prospered, became visible in all walks of
life, for example universities, corporations, government, social
situations etc. Muslim mosques, Hindu temples, Sikh gurud-
waras, Buddhist viharas sprang up all over America.
Muslim women wearing hijab, Hindu women wearing saris
and colorful dots on their foreheads, Sikh men wearing turbans
and beards, and Buddhists in their distinct gowns soon became
commonplace in public places in many cities across the US. Also
many of them moved from big cities and states to smaller cities
and states in the interior of America making those societies also
diverse. It is worth noting that the number of mosques in US grew
from about half a dozen in 1965 to about 2500 in 2012.
Is unbridled diversity a threat?
In recent years the unbridled wave of social and cultural diversi-
ty in the public arena that has swept through Americas cities over
the last 45 years has started creating some unease and a sense
of threat to some of the White Americans of earlier vintage. In
some locations in the US this diversity has become overtly visible
and somewhat in-your- face for some White Americans.
Some of them feel that it has started affecting their long held
ways of life and culture. For instance, if you go to greater New
York City, or cities in the state of New Jersey, or greater Chicago,
or Los Angeles or San Francisco, you see large concentrations of
Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Koreans, Chinese,
Vietnamese, Somalis, Ethiopians, Nigerians, Hispanics et al and
their shops, restaurants, social outfits etc in certain areas in those
cities. Being in those areas one wonders if he is still in America.
Also these cities look very different from how they looked back in
the 1950s.
Additionally, the migrs from Asian and African countries are
now not melting their individual cultures into the American melt-
ing pot. Instead, they are trying to keep their own cultures and
ways of life separate and distinct. Rightly or wrongly, that is mak-
ing some White Americans uncomfortable about the future of
their society.
The 9/11 watershed
As the American melting pot was experiencing all this turbulence,
suddenly the awful 9/11 terrorist attack took place. For all those
Americans who were starting to feel uncomfortable with the unbri-
dled diversity, they felt as if someone shoved them in their face.
Thus a reaction from a purist segment of the American society
grew. In response to the 9/11 terrorist attack many White
Americans reacted strongly to Muslims. Additionally, they also
reacted strongly to other immigrants from Middle Eastern and
South Asian countries. In the process, many non-Muslim Asians
suffered from the reaction of the White Americans. In the few
years following 9/11 many Hindu and Sikh immigrants were
attacked and some even killed. Yet on an individual basis in work-
places and residential neighbourhoods, White Americans contin-
ued to be friendly to Muslims.
In workplaces and in public places one could see the
increased growth in numbers of red necks - the racially conser-
vative White Americans, all over the US. In the bigger cities it may
be less so but in the far-suburbs of big cities and in small towns
and states at a distance from East Coast, California and Chicago,
the reaction of the conservative elements of the White Americans
to Asian and African immigrants is unmistakable.
Hate-mongering and violence by the extremists
In the later part of the 20th century, the Ku Klux Klan racist White
American hate group, that had been active in earlier decades
against Black Americans, had subsided, assisted by US govern-
ment laws that banned the group. In the decade since 9/11, a few
of the White Trash hate people who are not well educated, do not
have professional jobs, have formed small groups of likeminded
White people who basically despise the coloured people, the
immigrants from Asia and Africa, and the unbridled diversity that
is spreading in America.
In their own convoluted mindset they want to protect the
America that existed before World War II. They do not want to
see proliferation of mosques, temples and viharas and the
diverse customs, dresses and lifestyles that emanate from them.
In addition to being White culture excluvists, these folks love pos-
sessing and glorifying guns. The media calls these groups, that
are from the blue collar working class, White Trash because of
their lower socio-economic, educational and intellectual prowess
and narrow mindset.
Many of these White extremist groups have formed musical
bands and other social groups. They congregate typically in
either the far suburbs of big cities or in small towns. Their music
is racist aimed at the coloured people, the immigrants and the
non-Christians. They have their own publishing and distribution
organizations that distribute their music CDs and literature. They
hold conventions and jamborees among themselves. Thus their
message of hate against social diversity, the coloured people, the
immigrants, the non-Christians has slowly spread across US,
even as most White Americans continue to be free of bias against
the minorities.
Political Impact
Over the last five years some of the white culture extremists have
formed their own political party called Tea Party. This party made
its debut in the 2008 American elections and their influence on
the political and electoral scene, the US Congress and White
House in the 2012 US election is very pronounced. Additionally,
under their pressure the Republican Party, one of two major polit-
ical parties in US, the party of Abraham Lincoln who freed the
slaves, has been transformed into an ultra-conservative party.
The US Presidential and Congress elections of 2012 have
become tense and acrimonious as never before. Daily exchange
of verbal brickbats among the political rivals, the Republicans and
Democrats, that never happened before, is common fare now. In
the Republican Party Primary elections throughout the last two
years to nominate candidates for the November 2012 general
elections for a variety of positions, the consistently heard charge
against middle of the road candidates has been that they are not
conservative enough. That is forcing many Republican candi-
dates to move more to the right.
Violence Against Relegious
Minorities In America
Continued on the next page
INTERNATIONAL
18 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
KARAMATULLAH K. GHORI
There's a thousand-year old history of the
west's relentless campaign to undermine
the integrity of the Islamic world. It goes
back to the Crusades when the heart of the
Muslim world was invaded from Europe,
under the banner of the Cross, to ostensi-
bly wipe off the 'heathens' from the Holy
Land of Palestine and convert it into
Christianity's bastion.
Ironically, the spiralling Syrian crisis seems to have quickly
morphed into a 21st century version of that unfinished agenda,
still inexorably focused on the heart of the Islamic world, because
of the western world's ever-deepening involvement in it.
In modern history, however, the concerted western tirade,
pin-pointed on keeping the heart of the Muslim world permanent-
ly under thrall and subjugation began almost a hundred years ago
at the dawn of the 20th century. To the dismay and abiding
tragedy of the countries of Middle East, it coincided with the dis-
covery of oil, first in Iran and subsequently in the Arab part of the
Gulf.
The target, then, was the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire
and the parceling out of its possessions in the Arab world among
Europe's imperialist and colonial powers. The main weapon for
the western marauders to reach their goal was subversion
against the Turks in the Arabian Peninsula and the 'fertile cres-
cent'-Syria, Iraq and Palestine-on its periphery. Western spies,
saboteurs and agents provocateur, such as the notorious
Lawrence of Arabia were fanned out in the targeted areas to whip
up revolt against the Turks. Buying off Arab Quislings-such as the
'Sharif' of Hijaz, a Turkish surrogate appointed from among the
Arab nobility-was the most potent and effective tactics deployed
by the western sleuths. The rest, as they say, is history-and a his-
tory that we are still living and contending with, to this day.
The dismemberment of the Turkish possessions in the Arab
world was followed by the parceling out of principalities and emi-
rates to Arab chieftains, who had earned the 'pleasure' of the
western colonisers and imperialists by their absolute loyalty to the
European agenda for the region. They became rulers of what
could only be described as rented states serving European inter-
ests without demur at the expense of the larger interest of their
people.
The pattern hasn't changed much in a hundred years. The
progression of the Syrian crisis makes it so much convenient, and
educational, for any serious student of history to understand why
western powers-now blessed with the added weight of U.S. and
the dovetailing of its own agenda with that of the Europeans-are
so keen to mess up the Syrian scene and mould it to their whims.
The century of western domination of the oil-producing ME
countries was challenged, seriously for the first time, mid-way in
the 20th century in Iran with the rise of a nationalist Dr.
Mosaddeq. He had the gall and charisma to nationalise his coun-
try's national wealth, oil, which had been exploited mercilessly by
the then pre-eminent imperialist power, Britain, for its own bene-
fit and enrichment, whilst the Iranians wallowed in misery and
penury.
Mosaddeq's bravado was seen in the western world as rum-
blings of a revolt-like the one they'd fostered and encouraged
against the Turks in WWI-with the potential to become a trend-
setter in other oil-rich, but subservient, countries. The bluff of the
great Iranian nationalist and patriot-who had forced the western
puppet, the Shah, to flee the country and seek refuge in Italy-had
to be called. The Americans, nurturing their own imperialist ambi-
tions on the foot-prints of imperialist Britain-visibly in decline at
the end of WWII, quickly joined hands with imperial Britain to sub-
vert Mosaddeq's reolution because, in the words of Anthony
Eden-who was to invade Egypt in 1956 when Gamal Abdel
Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, another imperialist tool of
exploitation-the Iranians were "stealing British property."
The old and neo-imperialist powers, between them, hatched
the conspiracy to subvert Mosaddeq's popular government with
the aid of their agents and Quislings in Iran and bring back the
hated Shah to go on serving their interests at the cost of the wel-
fare and well-being of the people of Iran.
August 19 marked the 59th anniversary of the Anglo-
American coup against Dr. Mosaddeq, which gave the western
world-now led by U.S.-another 25 years to exploit Iran's wealth
for its own interest through their principal proxy in the region, the
detestable Shah-who was given a license to unleash a reign of
terror against his own people in his guise as the west's main
policeman in ME. The ruthless Shah eventually met his Waterloo
in the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran that heralded a regime-a
true successor to that of the unfortunate Dr. Mosaddeq-which has
been a thorn, ever since, in the sides of both the western imperi-
alists and their Quislings and proxies in the Arab world.
The Americans-for reasons well-known to the whole world-
have been leading the western campaign to manoeuvre a 'regime
change' in Tehran with as much enthusiasm and subterfuge as
they did in bringing down Mosaddeq, six decades ago.
There's a visible difference, however, between the modus
operandi deployed to bring down Mosaddeq and the game-plan
now in the works to get rid of the incumbent regime in Tehran.
Mosaddeq was subverted with the assistance of western agents
and 'moles' from within the Iranian society; the deep roots that the
Iranian revolution has struck among its people now makes it vir-
tually impossible for the west to have that kind of shameless
agents ready to sell their country o western bidding. But there are
proxies, this time around, among the Arab rulers in Iran's neigh-
bourhood, ready and willing to be part of the western brigade to
see the back of the 'inconvenient' Iranian regime. Getting rid of
the Assad regime in Syria-currently under serious assault by its
own people as well as by a well-furnished and well-supplied rebel
'Syrian National Army'-is the opening gambit in the western mas-
ter-plan to subvert the Iranian regime. Syria is as good as a pawn
on the larger chess-board, with Iran as the big prize, whenever
that happens.
It may have been purely coincidental that only two days
before the 59th anniversary of the toppling of Mosaddeq, the
Organisation of Islamic Co-operation wound up its 'extra-ordinary'
Summit in Mecca, called at the command of Saudi Arabia's King
Abdullah. The Mecca conclave had been assembled to chart out
an OIC strategy to deal with the Syrian imbroglio. However, all
that it did was to 'suspend' Syria's membership of OIC, on the
lines of what the Arab League had done, in November last year.
There's a lot of interesting material for keener students of his-
tory of the Arab and Islamic worlds in these developments emanat-
ing from the Syrian situation. They should bring flooding back to
memory what the then imperialists did a century ago, and what the
neo-imperialists are aiming and plotting to do in the ongoing crisis.
Some of the parallels are truly astonishing and awe-inspiring, for
anyone keen to draw inspiring inferences and conclusions.
The main theatre of the western-hatched conspiracy to
unhinge the Ottoman presence in Arabia was Hijaz, where the
rulers of the day had latched themselves on to the western impe-
rialist band-wagon. Today, Saudi Arabia, with Hijaz at its centre, is
at the fore-front of the western-led campaign to uproot the Assad
regime in Syria. Neither the western agenda of yore-to control and
exploit the oil wealth of the region-has changed one bit nor has its
imperialist game-plan to advance that agenda with the active help
and connivance of its local surrogates and proxies.
The Saudis summoned the OIC 'extra-ordinary' summit in the
month of Ramadan, two days before Eid, to rush the one-item
agenda-condemn Syria-at the behest of Washington. But, given
the fact of Saudi Arabia's decades old compact with U.S. it was-
n't, after all, all that extraordinary. Doing American biddings lies at
the core of Saudi statecraft. The only breach in this routine had
occurred in 1973 when the then King Faisal imposed an oil
embargo on the west, but was made to pay the ultimate price for
his temerity.
Syria wasn't even invited to the Mecca conclave. The deci-
sion to suspend it from OIC was taken in its absentia, without an
opportunity to it to explain its position or its side of the story.
Which leads one to concur in the argument that the decision had
been taken before the conference got underway; OIC simply puts
its cachet on an American diktat. That reflects very poorly on an
organization supposed to represent the collective will of 1.5 billion
Muslims of the world. OIC-with a Turk currently serving as its
Secretary-General-is as good as a hand-maiden of the Saudis
who, in turn, are so indebted and beholden to the imperialist
agenda for the Muslim world.
Such blatant display of subservience to imperialist ambitions
has invited swift backlash from keen observers because this
appalling mental slavery of Muslim leaders and rulers flies in the
face of OIC's claim that it speaks on behalf of the whole Islamic
Ummah.
Finian Cunningham-a robust critic of the western establish-
ments and corporate media, and a popular blogger in his own
right captured the dismay of common Muslims succinctly and
acidly observed: "As the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation
(OIC) concludes its emergency session in Mecca this week with
the suspension of Syria, its member states should now consider
amending the body's name-to the Organisation of Islamic cooper-
ation with United States Imperialism(OICUSI)."
There', however, one novel development in the context of
Syria that marks a clear divergence from the established pattern;
there's also a subtle irony shrouding the situation.
Turkey and the Turks was the target of western-inspired 'Arab
revolt' of early 20th century. Syria was as much a prize then as it
is now. But in an ironic and unfortunate twist of unfolding history,
Turkey is today a pivot of the west-crafted master plan to subvert
Syria. The anti-Assad forces are being trained in Turkey and
Jordan, another lynchpin of the western tirade, by military instruc-
tors of these countries. Saudi and Qatari petro-dollars-billions of
them-are keeping the Syrian renegades well-supplied in weapons
and ammunitions.
Why has Turkey opted to take this uncharted detour in its pol-
icy with regard to a sensitive neighbour is anybody's guess. The
track record of the current Turkish ruling elite had, otherwise,
been impeccable and judiciously pragmatic under the dynamic
leadership of PM Erdogan and his inspired and educated col-
leagues. Turkey had earned the adulation of Muslim masses all
over the world-if not of their western-proxy leaders-when it boldly
refused to allow George W. Bush, back in 2003, to use Turkish
territory to invade Iraq. That bold and forthright stand was taken
in resistance to heavy inducements from the war-mongering
Bush. So the Turkish U-turn on Syria defies common sense and
cold logic, equally. There's, however, no such riddle in the eager-
ness of the western powers, and their Muslim quislings, to put the
heat on Syria as a prelude to a more sinister plan to turn their
guns toward Iran once they're done with Syria.
With an eye on that, U.S. has already assembled a formida-
ble armada of aircraft-carrier -based naval ships-destroyers, bat-
tle ships, missile ships, sub-marines, floating ships et al-in the
Gulf within hailing distance of Iran. It's an unprecedented show of
strength and raw power aimed at intimidating Iran. On top of it,
U.S. proxies and client states, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and
U.A.E. have been launched on a buying spree of latest fighter air-
craft and radar systems to prime them for second-line support to
U.S. and Israeli war machines focused on Iran. An Iran-specific
missile base has been built-on the quiet, in Qatar, which has late-
ly emerged as the most active player in the chain of autocratic
Arab surrogates strutting on the regional stage as support actors
for their principal western puppeteers. All this is an incredibly
naked display of raw power-an essential tool of expansionist
ambitions.
It's unfortunate that the long-entrenched and ruthless auto-
crats of Syria, unaccustomed to any concept of power- sharing
with their people, are only inadvertently abetting the imperialist
power grab, besides making it doubly more difficult for the few
friends they are still left with on the international chessboard of
diplomacy to save Syria and its hapless people from a Libya-like
outcome.
How right was Marx when he'd observed-at the height of the
19th century imperialist grab for overseas possessions and
assets-that when history repeats itself the first time it's a farce,
but a tragedy when it does so the second time.
Western Proxies among Muslim Rulers are subverting the Islamic World
The main theatre of the western-hatched conspiracy to unhinge the Ottoman presence in
Arabia was Hijaz, where the rulers of the day had latched themselves on to the western imperialist
band-wagon. Today, Saudi Arabia, with Hijaz at its centre, is at the fore-front of the western-led
campaign to uproot the Assad regime in Syria. Neither the western agenda of yore-to control and
exploit the oil wealth of the region-has changed one bit nor has its imperialist game-plan to
advance that agenda with the active help and connivance of its local surrogates and proxies.
What can be done?
Obviously the power structure and the people in the global super-
power land of opportunity, that America continues to be, has to
come to grips with this phenomenon. Government has to put its
money where its mouth is; conduct a wide surveillance of the
White racist groups at grassroots level, apprehend the domestic
terrorists in the making and disband their groups that give them a
colour of legitimacy by calling themselves musical or social groups.
The immigrant and minority population in US too needs to take
some steps. Firstly, they should become more mindful of the fact
that living in America they should be more respectful of the main-
stream American culture and values and adopt them where they
can, and not isolate themselves from it, that makes them appear
aliens in the land where they live as citizens and invites reaction.
American culture is not bad per se; there are good elements in it
and bad elements in it. Adopt the good elements. Secondly, when
choosing where to live and where to have our business outlets, we
should not concentrate our homes and stores in close proximity of
each other, thereby making a ghetto of it that leads to reaction and
alienation. Thirdly, instead of forcing the culture and customs from
our mother countries on the youth in our daily lives, we should let
them import the harmless customs of America that they imbibe in
schools and colleges and let them make more friends with the
mainstream American youth.
What can Muslims do?
The Asians and Africans who live outside US should realize that
condemning US wholesale for these social issues will be counter-
productive. Introspect and you will find that despite the ills in US, it
is by far the most tolerant, liberal and diverse country that is willing
to give upward mobility opportunities to all regardless of the colour
of their skin or their religious faith or ethnic origin or other factors.
For Muslims, it is Islams farthest and western- most frontier on
planet earth. America offers Islam an opportunity to adapt to this
land and utilize the many positive American elements to cleanse
the undesirable negative elements. Just as five hundred years ago
Islam spread to far corners of Asia and Africa by integrating itself
with the local culture and customs, today it can form strong roots
in US and become an integral part of mainstream America by pre-
senting the soft and tolerant image of Islam and adapting to the
many positive elements of America.
Continued from the previous page
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The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 19
ZAFARUL-ISLAM KHAN
Every religious and ethnic group has its festivals which bring
members of that group together on certain days and dates every
year. These occasions provide the group with a sense of belong-
ing through taking part in prayers and sharing in festivity and joy.
Religions too have their festivals but these are seldom celebrated
in a single manner all over the world. Islam has only two religious-
ly-ordained festivals which are celebrated in a single orderly man-
ner all over the world. The two Islamic festivals are Eid al-Fitr and
Eid al-Adha. The former is celebrated at the end of the month-long
day-time fasting, while the latter is celebrated at the end of the
arduous journey to Makkah and performing the Haj rituals there.
On both occasions, Eid is an occasion of thanks-giving in humility
to Allah who gave an opportunity to His slaves to fast and perform
Haj which are difficult tasks and could not be completed without
staunch belief and divine help to every Muslim man and woman.
Eid is also an occasion of sharing the joy with relatives, neigh-
bours and the poor in general. The Eid al-Fitr prayer cannot be
performed without paying a fixed alm, Sadaqa al-Fitr, to the poor
for every member of ones family, while the Haj is not complete
without offering a sacrifice, most of whose meat is distributed to
the poor. The idea is that poor too should share in these joys and
should benefit from these festivities.
Both these festivals are essentially thanks-giving occasions
because the Prophet (pbuh) said, fasting during Ramadan erases
the sins committed during the previous year while the Haj erases
the sins committed by the pilgrim in his pre-pilgrimage life.
Though these days, people are offering Eid prayers almost in
all neighbourhood mosques, the Islamic tradition has been for the
whole locality to offer the prayers in a special mosque outside the
village or town or in the grand mosque of the area. The wisdom is
that all Muslims of the area should meet each other at least twice
a year in one single place just as Muslims of the whole world meet
once at Makkah every single year since the advent of Islam.
Women and children should also participate in these prayers
though of late women tend to stay at home and only men and chil-
dren go to these prayers.
Both Ramadan and Haj are occasions for the believer to
examine his/her past life and to rejuvenate his/her faith and com-
mitment to Allah and the community. If one fails in this duty, his/her
fasting and Haj will be a worthless exercise, a mere hardship with
no result.
Unlike some other religions, Islam does not give any licence
for misbehaviour during these festivals. These are utterly civilised
and sober occasions where joy and sharing do not lead to licen-
tious behaviour because consumption of narcotics and liquor or
indulgence in mindless dance or noisy expressions of joy are not
permitted.
The essence of Eid is sharing and strengthening social bond,
and expression of gratitude to Allah who gave the believer a
chance to follow His command to observe the month-long fasting
and to take up the arduous journey to Makkah, sacrificing wealth,
time, luxuries of life and material resources.
Ramadan and Haj will remain purposeless if they do not incul-
cate in the believer the qualities of humility, piety, God-fearing,
thanks-giving and a habit of sharing his wealth and time with oth-
ers. Said Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, the great sufi, in his book
Ghinyatul Talibin, Eid is not for those who don fine clothes but for
those who are fearful of Allahs warnings and punishment. Eid is
not for those who use scents on this day but for those who repent
and stay steadfast in their repentance. Eid is not for those who
cook various dishes in big utensils but for those who resolve to
lead a life of piety and choose taqwa (God-fearing) as their future
path.
The above short article was sent to the editor of a national daily;
he was also alerted by an sms with a request to publish it on Eid day.
The editor knows the writer but did not reply by email or sms. The arti-
cle was not published while on Eid day (20 August) the newspaper
published a religious column in the Delhi edition entitled Committed
to protect on Lords incarnations, while a south Indian edition of the
same daily sufficed to publish a photograph of a mosque in Mysore
for the occasion.
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Eid - the Islamic Festival
20 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
ROBIN WRIGHT
Washington: ...For years, many Salafis salaf
means predecessors had avoided politics and
embraced autocrats as long as they were
Muslims. But over the past eight months, clus-
ters of worshipers across the Middle East have
morphed into powerful Salafi movements that
are tapping into the disillusionment and disorder
of transitions.
A new Salafi Crescent, radiating from the
Persian Gulf sheikdoms into the Levant and
North Africa, is one of the most underappreciat-
ed and disturbing by products of the Arab
revolts. In varying degrees, these populist puri-
tans are moving into the political space once
occupied by jihadi militants, who are now less in
vogue. Both are fundamentalists who favour a
new order modelled on early Islam. Salafis are
not necessarily fighters, however. Many dis-
avow violence.
...In Egypt, Salafis emerged last year from
obscurity, hastily formed parties, and in January
won 25 percent of the seats in parliament - sec-
ond only to the 84-year-old Muslim
Brotherhood. Salafis are a growing influence in
Syrias rebellion. And they have parties or fac-
tions in Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Yemen
and among Palestinians...
A common denominator among disparate
Salafi groups is inspiration and support from
Wahhabis, a puritanical strain of Sunni Islam
from Saudi Arabia. Not all Saudis are Wahhabis.
Not all Salafis are Wahhabis, either. But
Wahhabis are basically all Salafis. And many
Arabs, particularly outside the sparsely populat-
ed Gulf, suspect that Wahhabis are trying to
seize the future by aiding and abetting the
regions newly politicized Salafis - as they did 30
years ago by funding the South Asian madras-
sas that produced Afghanistans Taliban.
Salafis go much further in restricting politi-
cal and personal life than the larger and more
modern Islamist parties that have won electoral
pluralities in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco since
October. For most Arabs, the rallying cry is jus-
tice, both economic and political. For Salafis, it
is also about a virtue that is inflexible and
enforceable.
You have two choices: heaven or hellfire,
Sheikh Muhammad el-Kurdi instructed me after
his election to Egypts parliament as a member
of Al Nour, a Salafi party. It favours gender seg-
regation in schools and offices, he told me, so
that men can concentrate. Its O.K. for you to
be in the room, he explained. You are our
guest, and we know why youre here. But you
are one woman and we are three men - and we
all want to marry you....
Other more modern Islamists fear the Salafi
factor. The Salafis try to push us, said Rachid
al-Ghannouchi, founder of Ennahda, the ruling
Islamist party in Tunisia. The two Islamist
groups there are now rivals. Salafis are against
drafting a constitution. They think it is the
Koran, grumbled Merhzia Labidi, the vice
chairwoman of Tunisias Constituent Assembly
and a member of Ennahda.
Salafis are deepening the divide between
Sunni and Shiite Muslims and challenging the
Shiite Crescent, a term coined by Jordans
King Abdullah in 2004, during the Iraq war, to
describe an arc of influence from Shiite-domi-
nated Iran to its allies in Iraq, Syria and
Lebanon. Today, these rival crescents risk turn-
ing countries in transition into battlefields over
the regions future.
The Salafis represent a painful long-term
conundrum for the West. Their goals are the
most anti-Western of any Islamist parties. They
are trying to push both secularists and other
Islamists into the not-always-virtuous
past....(New York Times, August 19, 2012)
MG Comment: The observation of this writer
is correct as far as the current situation in
some Arab countries is concerned. But he
fails to appreciate that West, and America in
particular, is responsible for the current sce-
nario. They blindly supported dictators and
did not allow sane and educated Islamists
to function even as a legal political party.
Wherever they won elections (Algeria,
Palestine), they were not allowed to rule. At
the same time they allied with people like
Osama Ben Laden in Afghanistan, who were
Salafis to the core, and allowed them to
become heroes of the Muslim World. In the
meantime Gulf money poured into these
once sleepy groups which enjoyed no influ-
ence in their societies and were happy to get
permission to operate a small society or to
publish a rag of a magazine. I saw this with
my own eyes in Cairo in late 1960s and early
1970s.
Over the last four decades, these mar-
ginal groups have grown big, have big
assets, and utilising these assets they filled
the vacuum that existed due to the forced
banishment of the Islamists from the politi-
cal arena. Given freedom, during these past
four decade the Muslim Brotherhood could
have won same kind of seats in the Egyptian
parliament in any election, as it won finally
this year, while Salafis could not dream to
even win a single seat, that is if they contest-
ed at all.
The situation is different today. As a
result of the wrong western policies, Salafis
have grown into a force to reckon with and
now enjoy a position to compete with real,
educated, cultured and responsible
Islamists like Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi
Arabias interior minister Prince Nayef had
openly attacked MB a few years back and
had considered it a source of the problems
in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Very recently,
Dubais Police chief, Dhahi Khalfan,
attacked Egypts President Mursi by name
and told him bluntly that he will work to make
him fail.
The belligerent Salafis are extremely
soft on the Gulf rulers who might be thinking
that Salafis in position of power in places like
Egypt will help prolong their monarchies. An
expedient West will once again ally with the
Salafis to frustrate MB and in the process
will repent at leisure as it did in the case of
Osama Ben Laden. (Zafarul-Islam Khan)
Dont Fear All Islamists, Fear Salafis
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 21
BOOKS
Book: Democratization in the Arab World - Prospects and
Lessons from Around the Globe.
Authors: Laurel E. Miller, Jeffrey Martini, F. Stephen Larrabee,
Angel Rabasa, Stephanie Pezard, Julie E. Taylor, Tewodaj
Mengistu.
Publisher: RAND National Defense Research Institute , 2012.
Pages: 439; Year: 2012-08-25
ISBN 978-0-8330-7207-8
(Pdf version available free at :
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2012/RAND_MG11
92.pdf)
JIM MILES
This monograph from the Rand, an American think tank, presents
the history of the democracy movements around the world the
way it spozed to be. It is a sanitized version of events, cleansed
of any U.S. involvement - except after democracy has already
poked its head up - denying by simple omission that the U.S. had
any part to play in the various democracy fights - and the under-
lying non-democratic nature in many of the states.
For good reason - the historical record clearly shows there is
enormous U.S. investment in changing regimes around the world
to suit their own geopolitical purposes. This investment belongs
to the militarys overt and covert operations in many countries,
and it also belongs to the financial institutions that influence, con-
trol, and persuade governments to various courses of action,
mostly non-democratic.
Structure: The monograph is structured and repetitive. It is
essentially in five parts, the first part not given as a part but with
a thirty-five page summary of what is to follow, it is an integral part
of the book. For that matter it is the best part of the book and
makes reading the rest of it somewhat unnecessary.
The following three parts look at democracy movements. The
first part discusses concepts and context, with mostly vague com-
mon sense propositions for the concepts and a large void for the
context. Certainly the work tries to give some background for
each area discussed, but it is minimal and as already stated,
almost fully sanitized as to any U.S. involvement or as to why the
states were non-democratic in the first place.
The second part looks at the Arab winter and spring. The third
part looks at other areas of the world to try and see some com-
parisons: Southern Europe, Latin America, Eastern Europe,
South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The sections within the latter parts are similarly repetitive,
perhaps providing a modicum of information for names, dates,
and places, but again mostly empty of context in a truly global for-
eign policy manner - which is what the RAND is supposed to be
about after all. The final section, on lessons and policy implica-
tions is rather vague, some feel-good statements and common
sense generalities, but nothing profound nor fundamentally new.
Its goal is to bridge academics worldand policy worlds
interest - a task which it may well have achieved notwithstanding
the poverty of the presentation. It supposes to ask why there was
no democracy in the Arab world, and proposes three supposi-
tions: first the culture, the old Orientalist view of the wrong kind of
culture for democracy; secondly, is oil, obviously a major part, but
an overwhelmingly under-developed prospect. Finally, Israel is
mentioned, as it is infrequently, and again this supposition is
never addressed, except for a few passing mentions, and the all
too frequent fantasy that Israel is the only democracy in the
Middle East.
A world without America: As I have indicated elsewhere,
when reviewing a book, I look for the use of language, the inher-
it contradictions in the work, and the context within which it is writ-
ten. The language in this work is mostly academically neutral with
only a few indicators of the writers biases. There are a few con-
tradictions in the text, and there probably would be many more if
the context was represented - so at best, instead of contradic-
tions, the true phrase would have to be double standards. Finally,
the context, that even when they say they are giving the reader
some context, the writers fall woefully short of even coming close
to a realistic context.
The world I have known for the past fifty years is replete with
U.S. interventions in other countries, militarily and institutionally,
mostly economic institutions (IMF, WTO, NATO, OECD, et al).
With over 800 military bases around the world and in over 120
countries, with the largest military budget in the world by far, with
the largest record of interventions into other countries, or support-
ing their cronies and elites of other countries, it is hard to imagine
a history written without any mention of U.S. military adventurism
taken into account when talking about democracy.
Similarly, with control over many of the worlds large financial
institutions, with its currency being the reserve currency for glob-
al interactions, with its stress on free market capitalism and trade
liberalization whose agreements are all written in secret by very
non-democratic actors (business lawyers, CEOs, politicians), it is
hard to imagine a history written without any mention of U.S. eco-
nomic adventurism taken into account when talking about democ-
racy.
Language: Just a few points on language, some from Africa,
some from South America.
In Libya, the rebel group is describes as ragtag groups of
rebels steadily gaining ground in their ultimately successful quest
to push Libyas dictator from power. 300 pages or so later, there
is some recognition that they had NATO air support, but there is
no mention of historical U.S. animosity to the regime, the use of
special ops trainers, nor even that NATO is primarily a mercenary
extension of the U.S. forces.
Another aspect of language use is the common conflation of
democracy with free markets and trade liberalization. This is
implied more than stated, but it is implied repeatedly. At the same
time, when discussing sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin
America, the context of free markets and trade liberalization is
given very short treatment, without recognition of the predations
of the IMF and World Banks structural adjustment programs
(SAP - now restated as austerity measures). The evidence they
do give for the economic situation in many countries and how bad
it is - in particular poverty for the masses, wealth for the elites -
reflects the results of the SAP interventions. Certainly the GDP in
many countries has risen, but after a depression or recession that
is not hard to achieve if a few billionaires arrive on the scene - the
GDP being economists favourite measurement of success, but is
really one of the worst measurements of economic success
Democracy and double standards: As the main subject of the
work, democracy itself is rather well undefined. By implication it
involves a series of institutions, a constitution, a set of civil soci-
eties, and free elections. Two large double standards stand out
throughout these discussions.
First is the requisite that a country needs a constitution. This
contradicts Israel being a democracy - along with its many other
non-democratic actions such as occupations, torture, annexation,
civil structural demolitions, martial law and on. It is becoming
increasingly a relevant topic within the U.S. where the constitu-
tional processes are being bypassed by the executive branch and
ignored by Congress.
Several times in the work, it is stated that a democracy must
put its military under civilian control. On paper, that is where the
U.S. military is, but as the U.S. economy is largely influenced by
military corporations, and where much of its budget is off the
record, there certainly is no democracy in the control and running
of the U.S. military. It is also repeated that elections are not suf-
ficient to create democracy, but they are clearly necessary. This
provides an interesting contrast to the U.S. spectacle of never
ending election cycles, and election processes that carry on for
months and years and require hundreds of millions of dollars for
success - a grand spectacle but hardly a democratic process in
an almost single party state.
Another repeated statement is that there are no longer any
widely recognizable alternatives to democracy in terms of
expressed ideologies, restated much later that No govern-
ments openly propose any transplantable alternative to democra-
cy. Institutions in the international system promote democracy as
a universal norm. Of course this arises partly from the self-pro-
claimed belief that the U.S. is the ultimate model of democracy,
and that free markets and trade liberalization (more realistically
corporate control of the worlds finances) are democratic. It also
denies the many interventions made by the U.S. to destroy dem-
ocratic governments (Iran, Chile, Brazil, most of Central America,
Greece, Grenada to name a few) before they proved to be a good
alternative and democratic working model to the U.S. system.
The authors indicate that the current governments of
Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia are semi-authoritarian populist
governments, opposing most indicators that say they are quite
democratic and have the support of the people (thats the pop-
ulism part, wouldnt do to have the support of the people in the
implied democracy of the elites.) What it really says is that these
governments are popularly elected, have as good if not better
democratic tendencies than some of their neighbours, and are
opposed to a degree to U.S. corporate and military behaviours.
This can be compared to current U.S. support for recent coups in
Paraguay and Honduras, continuing the pattern of U.S. anti-dem-
ocratic actions in Latin America.
Arab states: The discussion starts with the Arab region as this is
purportedly the main interest of the text, but the reader finds very
little U.S. involvement in current events! Further back in history
there is no description of the meddling of the old imperial forces -
Germany, Britain, France, Russia, Italy - and their unilateral deci-
sions regarding the people of the region. There is no mention of
U.S. dollar support to the Egyptian military, or how the U.S. stood
aside and waited apprehensively as the protests in Egypt mount-
ed. There is some indication that the U.S. is concerned with how
the military-civilian tug of war in Egypt may play out, but either
way is good for the U.S.: ..the question remains how the United
States will react if the Egyptian military opts for de facto continu-
ation of the prerevolution system. If the military succeeds in
power, the U.S. will be fully content with their puppet regime, just
as they were with Mubarak in power. If the civil powers succeed,
Islamist or not, they can boast about how democracy is working -
while trying to figure out how to pressure Egypt vis--vis its part-
ner Israel.
And if Israel is so democratic, why does it have so many
theocratic laws, and why does it continue to occupy, oppress, and
annex Palestinian territory? No mention is made of the billions of
dollars granted to Israel every year along with major military sup-
port. Democracy in action? And if democracy is so important why
did the Palestinian elections of 2006, which were declared open
and fair, meet with such stiff U.S. resistance? Mostly U.S. geopo-
litical interests with the natural resources of the region.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq testifies to that, although
it is not mentioned in the work, as it was for a while purportedly to
create democracy and freedom. Yes, there were elections, the
first one forced by the Shiites on a reluctant occupying governor
who recognized that the Shias would probably win and ally with
Iran.
Effectively, the U.S. does not care about democracy, as long
as the government of the day is one of their own bastards and
does not interfere with their power. Saudi Arabia and Gulf Coast
States are the best examples of this, all non-democratic, current-
ly trying to eliminate another non-democratic state, Syria, not on
democratic grounds, but on theocratic alignments. The U.S. is
allegedly using its arch enemy al-Qaeda as its ally in this war to
further contain Iran, and then Russia and China.
For the current debacle in Syria, interventions from Iran,
Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain are mentioned, highlighting the theo-
cratic fight. The authors conclude that Foreign interference could
be significant after a regime change. Really! But of course the
U.S. has nothing to do with all that, not according to this tract.
Latin America: To achieve a true picture of U.S. interventions in
Latin America, I would recommend two texts. Empires Workshop
by Greg Grandin (Henry Holt & Company, 2006) and Overthrow
by Strephen Kinzer, (Times Books, 2006). Both these books pro-
vide the necessary historical background to this region that is so
lacking in this monograph. There are also several books available
on the effects of the global financial institutions of the Washington
consensus describing how the austerity measures, as they are
now labelled, helped destroy the middle class and the land hold-
ing systems of the farming class.
One of the best summative works for the military interven-
tions in these countries, as well as in Asia, Europe, and Africa, is
William Blums Killing Hope, (Common Courage Press, 2000),
and is well accompanied by Rogue State (Common Courage
Press, 2005).
Africa: The discussion of sub-Saharan African democracy fol-
lows a similar path. No real mention is made of historical colonial
influences, no discussion is made of post colonial economic colo-
nialism through the western financial institutions. One of the more
enlightening works on the economic colonialism is Bitter Harvest,
The World Bank and African Agriculture in the 1980s, Peter
Gibbon et al. (Africa World Press, New Jersey, 1993).
Asia: This is an amazingly poor section, with no discussion of the
U.S. push to eliminate either directly or through proxy, any resist-
ance to their interests in the region. Vietnam had a series of mil-
itary regimes until the government collapsed in 1975. Thats it.
That is the historical context for that country. No mention of the
millions killed by U.S. military actions, no mention of U.S. support
of the various regimes until they were no longer needed, no men-
tion of the cancelled UN vote on unification as the U.S. knew its
cronies would lose, no mention of the Green Berets or the
500,000 military personnel that circulated through the country.
Similarly with the Philippines and Indonesia, no mention of
the hundreds of thousands killed as they resisted the oppression
of the state, peasants conveniently labelled communist so that
they became the other, able to be killed without recourse to law.
The U.S. backed most of these non-democratic regimes until
other forces forced them to change their mind and go with the
new regimes.
Policy institute?: If this is the best that RAND has to offer, it is
no wonder that U.S. foreign policy seems so wilfully blind and
systematically ignorant. To hear the U.S. preach about democra-
cy and freedom is fine if one does not consider their actions
around the world, currently or historically. If one wishes to have
the sanitized version, this is the work for you.
Otherwise, this work adds nothing to a critical examination of
U.S. foreign policy, or defence policy. It is a series of repetitive
presentations providing vague common sense rules for establish-
ing democracy, devoid of any U.S. contact.
Now, if in truth, there were no U.S. contact, if the world could
eliminate its historical interventions, then perhaps we might have
a more truly democratic world.
The way it spozed to be - a sanitized version of U.S history
Sachar Committee Report
English Rs 1000
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The Arab region is purportedly the main interest of the text,
but the reader finds very little U.S. involvement in current
events! There is no mention of U.S. dollar support to the
Egyptian military, or how the U.S. stood aside and waited
apprehensively as the protests in Egypt mounted. There is
some indication that the U.S. is concerned with how the
military-civilian tug of war in Egypt may play out, but either
way is good for the U.S.
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MG
Milli Gazette is carrying on the tradition of publishing every shade of
opinion. It is taking up news overlooked by national media which has
become only mouthpiece of some. I am unable to understand the
apathy of that section of society for which MG stands?
N Jamal Ansari, Aligarh
II
MG is a very good paper covering major issues and problems faced
by Indian Muslims. Please continue with same fervour. Wishing you
all the best..
Habib Badi, Surat
Assam: absurd and ridiculous
The Assamese have become a laughing stock before the world.
They are migrating to Assam to save their lives but they could not
think how such a great number of them can be killed by Muslims?
Muslims themselves are under the threat of the government, thou-
sands of their youths have been apprehended on the charges of ter-
rorism and are in jails. Muslims do not have any strong organization
like RSS, Ram Sene, Bajrang Dal, VHP etc. Some 40 thousand riots
have took place in India after independence. They were killed, their
shops and houses were gutted, their women were raped. In Assam
armed Bodos killed in hundreds and they rendered homeless 4
lakhs Muslims who have taken shelter in 300 rescue homes.
In such a precarious condition how Muslims can take revenge
from Assamese people who have come to southern states to earn
livelihood and for education etc. They are not responsible for the
Muslim massacre in Khokrajhar. The Bodos with the help of the local
government and arms invaded Muslims and made their genocide.
The central government played a criminal role. It did not send the
army to the rescue of the poor and helpless Muslims. Pakistan has
become a garbage dump whatever and whereever the garbage is
seen it is dumped there to wash off hands and the matter is closed.
The government should anticipate that China the other strong
enemy can make use the same strategy in Arunachal or Jammu and
get vacated the states from Hindus. This is a serious matter. The
prime minister said he will not spare the masterminds but he cannot
dare to speak any word against the Bodo culprits who killed Muslims
and shamed the country in the eyes of the world.
Dr AH Maqdoomi, Hyderabad
Myanmar Muslims
Merciless killings of Muslims are going on in Myanmar. Buddhist
monks are after this massacre. The hypocrisy of this so called non-
violent Buddhists is horrible. Rohingya Muslims are a small minority
in Myanmar. They are burnt alive at some places. They are dying
and there is no place to take refuge. They are compelled to eat pork
and when they don't eat pork, they are killed. Some Muslims have
fled to Thailand but the government is not in their favour. Those who
left for Bangladesh are also not getting support from the local
authority. Women and children are not safe in Myanmar. The U.N.is
not taking actions against this massacre. Muslims of the world must
raise their voice against it. Unfortunately we Muslims are divided
and fight among ourselves. The situation makes the sensitive
Muslims cry.
Nazneen O.Saherwala, Surat
O Muslims! be united
O Muslims of India! Wake up, and be united. Please be on one plat-
form. The question arises: how can the Muslims come on one plat-
form? Its answer is that the Muslims should forget the differences of
caste, creed and religion and they should have no ill-will, malice,
jealousy towards anybody and they should quit their selfishness. If
they do so, they will not be tortured, plundered and their mass mur-
der will be stopped forever. Undoubtedly, unity is strength. United
we stand and divided we fall. If the Muslims are united, our enemies
and communal minded Hindus will have no courage to kill us, harass
us and embarrass us. The Muslims are murdered, because they do
not follow the teachings of Islam, and they do not act according to
the teachings of The Holy Quran.
Shakeel Ahmad Frank, Gorakhpur, U.P.
Media creates terror?
Before Independence day media created such a scenario that our
independence celebration in going to be organised under some
enemy scheme. Everywhere police would be posted, hotels, bars,
railway stations, bus stands etc. will be under watchful eyes of
police. There are routine activities and such police activities increas-
es at certain time. But media presents these news as if we are at the
attack range creating a terror psychosis among people. Home min-
ister Sushil Kr. Shinde ordered security department not to issue rou-
tine terror alert until unless specific intelligence input received
because these alert has been issued without any input which were
worthless. H. M. ordered on 12 August. Mr. Shinde hesitated to
divulge truth about these alert as MG / 16-31 July 2012 / I. B. alert
on page 23 explained the intention behind issuing these alerts
S. Haque, Patna
Growing violence against women
Violence against women is the fastest rising crime in our country. A
woman is raped every 22 minutes and a bride burnt for dowry every
58 minutes. Female foeticide is common among educated and afflu-
ent. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was a great exponent of women's
right and benefactor of woman kind. The Prophet said "Serve your
mother, for heaven lies under her feet." About daughter, the Prophet
said, "Whoever has daughter and does not subject her to mean
treatment and does not give preference to his son over his daughter
God will make him enter heaven. The Prophet said, "Do not hate
girls, they are comforting and very precious." About wives the
Prophet said, "Treat them kindly and fulfill their rights." The Prophet
further said "The best among your are those who are best to their
wives." Hadith Books (containing teachings and sayings of the
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) are full of such precious gems.
G. Hasnain Kaif, Bhandara, Maharashtra - 441904
Great freedom fighter Peer Ali
Great freedom fighter Peer Ali led young brigade against English
tyranny. On 3rd July 1857 he was leading protest against Britishers,
army subedar R. Loyal appeared facing freedom fighters near padri
ki havelli and ordered firing killing many freedom fighters in which
Peer Ali assistant Imamuddin injured. Peer Ali fired at R. Loyal head
and there on spot Loyal died. On 5 July British govt. got news that
Peer Ali was resting alone at his house and English army captured
him and produced his in court when he was awarded death sen-
tence Commissioner Taylor ordered to bring Peer Ali in front of him.
Taylor asked Peer Ali that he could forgive what Ali you could do for
us. Then Peer Ali replied you can hang me but thousands like me
would be born and your aim would be destroyed. It is mentioned in
Taylors book over crisis Peer Ali where he was hanged these in
only stone written Martyr Place near Mehdi Ganj railway crossing.
No Muslim organisation bother about even government left this
place where great freedom fighter Peer Ali was given death sen-
tence where his body lying uncared for many days.
S. Haque, Patna
Dismal performance of HRD ministry
Under the directive principles of our constitution, children from the
age of five to fourteen are entitled to get free and compulsory edu-
cation but even after 63 years of freedom it remains a distant dream,
despite the recent Right of Education Act. Education in India has
become a thriving industry public schools are changing thousand of
rupees after very three months from the parents and guardians of
the student but the HRD Ministry is acting as helpless spectator and
has failed to stop commercialization of education. In Delhi the capi-
tal of India there are number of Govt. Primary schools which have
no building of their own and they are in tents and the ministry has
done nothing in this regard. This is really disgusting that in our coun-
try it is the largest parliamentary democracy of the world, there is no
tinge of democracy in Indian universities - temples of highest educa-
tion and vice chancellors are acting like despots are violating provi-
sions of the University Act Statutes. Neither the UGC which is the
controlling body over the universities nor the HRD ministry has failed
to democratize universities and the czardoms of vice chancellors.
While the holder of the highest office of the country, the president of
the Indian union can be imparted if he or she misuses his or her
powers, judges of the apex court and judges of High Court can be
impeached and ministers both at the centre and states are account-
able and responsible to legislature for all their actions and policies
but heads of universities i. e. vice chancellors cannot be impeached
as there is not provision in any act of Indian universities for their
impeachment if they violate provisions of the universities and the
HRD ministry the Supreme body has failed to take action against
errant vice chancellor who act like absolute monarchs. Over and
above all this universities have been infested with corruption, but no
action has been taken by the ministry against the tainted vice chan-
cellors. The glaring example is that of a former vice chancellor of a
Muslim university who relinquished his office in January 2012 who
has to face a presidential enquiry on charges of grave financial irreg-
ularities and bungling but the ministry did not ask him to proceed on
leave. The overall performance of HRD ministry is highly disappoint-
ing and dismal.
Dr. M. Hashim Kidwai, ex MP, Mayur Vihar, Delhi
Mumbai riots vs. Government of Maharashtra.
On August 11, 2012 again Mumbai seen horrible communal clash-
es. However this time the theme was different, it was Media verses
Muslims. As usual police seen in a very embarrassing situation. Just
throwing spade and responsibility on the head of Muslim Scholars
and Maulanas and keeping them in the witness box, and holding
them responsible for riots. On 13/8/2012 Police Commissioner and
intelligence making statement that riots were preplanned. Riots
were preplanned, as stated by the Police, yes it was preplanned, it
may be planned by saffron elements. Shiv Sena, Hindu Janajagruti
Samiti, Sanatan Sanstha, Hindu Mahasabha and Rashtriya Hindu
Vidhidhyari Parishad. They might have throw arrow to hit the target
in the name of Muslims. A detail inquiry also required to carry out the
role of these organisations behind the communal clashes. Raza
Academy called the peaceful protest at Azad
Zuber Ahmed Khan, Navi Mumbai , Maharashtra
Media bias against Muslims
Ex president of BJP Murli Manohar Joshi said "Muslims are not a
minority" when he was delivering a lecture on "Deen Dayal, J. P. and
Lohia's views." At Ravindra Bhavan Hall, Patna on 12 August. He
explained how Muslims are not a minority in secular democracy.
Hindi national daily published this news in 5"x5.5" column. BJP
Bhagalpur M. P. Syed Shahnawaz Hussain was asked his com-
ments about M. M. Joshi's version he replied "According to constitu-
tion Muslims are a minority" national Hindi daily published Syed's
rebuttal in 1"x2" column at page 11/14 August 2012 as if what Syed
Shahnawaz Hussain's reply is trivial and worthless to read. The bias
of media against Muslim is deep rooted and superficially media
shows themselves just and against all oppression. But media sup-
presses the facts and figures when needed for justice to Muslims.
S. Haque, Patna
Why?
It is claimed that the condition in Bangladesh is so bad that daily
6000 cross the border and that all are Muslims. It should be noted
that there are regular news reports that Bangladeshi Hindus do not
enjoy equal rights. So why dont Bangladeshi Hindus migrate?
Mazin Khan, New Delhi
Paradropped, real Muslim leaders and real Muslim cause
Cabinet health minister Ghulan Nabi Azad visited Bihar to speed up
the construction of IGIMS at Patna. But after complain put in front of
him about AMU campus of non allotment of fund. He didnt pay any
heed. On the other hand RJD M. L. A. Akhtarul Imam, MLC Ghulam
Ghouse, MLC Tanveer Hassan going to Delhi for AMU campus con-
struction and release of fund. The real concern of Muslim is illetarcy
job share and justice. But paradropped Muslim fake leaders divert
the issues and for showing himself super secular leader these lead-
ers keep their mouth shut. Muslim would not justice and job share till
these paradropped fake Muslim leaders removed from seen. When
the group of Muslim leaders, P. M. assured to release fund very
soon. What P. M. means very soon? It is before 2014 M. P. election?
S. Haque, Patna
President of India was a teacher of Islamia High School
President of India Shri Pranab Mukherji was teacher in Kankra
Islamia High School, Howrah, Kolkata for two years in his yearly life.
Now teachers, students and committee members are very happy
and congratulating shri Mukherji. They expect that their school
would get new life. Muslims are living in mirage. First president of
India Rajendra Prasad studied in Urdu. Inder Kr. Gujral was chair-
man of Gujral committee made for Urdu development committee.
But he did not implement his recommendation for Urdu development
when he became P.M. Muslims must realise that they have to strive
hard to get position in society and don't expect others would lend
you any support.
S. Haque, Patna
Muslim girls are on target
Darbhanga is on the radar of security forces. From different state
ATS or SIT visit Darbhanga and kidnapped Muslims and different
state security agencies pass them (Muslim like football) to other
state security agencies. But now Muslim girls are being kidnapped
advocate Rasheed Ahmad Darbhanga civil court has raised the
issue and asked Muslim Bedari Karvaan to take this issue serious-
ly. Muslim girls in many number from Darbhanga has been kid-
napped and sold to different cities. Kidnapping of Muslim girls has
flourished in Darbhanga. Police does not pay any attention and
Ummah is silent and Muslim leaders are busy prcising their party
head.
S. Haque, Patna
Md. Khalid - an unknown humanitarian
Topi clad beard sporting Md. Khalid is a recognised face in
Hazaribagh, Jharkhan. He is completing last rites to any unknown
dead bodies. Police and hospital call him when any unidentified on
unclaimed body needs last rite. Every year more than hundred
unclaimed bodies last rites he does. Muslim media must highlight
our unknown and unsung heroes.
S. Haque, Patna
Do they have any self respect?
Does not being pleased with the Big Satans show of happiness and
not being cautioned by his expression of pleasure not mean that we
too have lost self respect because several presidents of the country
which is founder of terrorism are not ashamed of any immorality
including their and their spouses infidelity?
S. Akhtar, Khanpur Deh
How W.B. and Bihar were terrorist free for 35, 15 yrs?
W.B. and Bihar were terrorist free state for 35 year and 15 yr under
communist and Laloo's regime respectively. But as the ruling party
changed terrorists suddenly emerged in Bihar and West Bengal.
I.B., SIT, CBI and STF etc. started pouncing upon the terrorist in
Bihar and Bengal. STF Bengal captured Haroon Yousuf on 17 July
from Kolkata and declared him I.M. module who wanted to blast
Mamta rally and STF recovered huge explosive materials. Mamta
rally was on July 21. Many young Muslims were killed in fake
encounter on the intelligence input that they were playing to kill
Advani or Modi. Ishrat Jehan and three innocents were killed by
police and arms were recovered on the basis of intelligence input
about terrorist were on the Modi killing mission. But Ishrat Jehan
encounter proved fake in court and court directed to investigate the
veracity of intelligence input. Bihar had been terrorist free zone in 15
yr Laloo Yadav regime and suddenly after changing the party rule,
terrorists are cropping up why? At least a dozen of Muslims were
arrested in the charge of terrorism why?
S. Haque, Patna
Muslim India shamed
According to the news a Muslim Khatoon, 30 years from Araria Distt.
Bihar sold her four month old son just for rupees 62 to a Nepalese
couple on account of poverty. The incident is horrible which can not
be compensated in any way. True speaking, the incident is neither
new or rarest of rare as such cases are very common on Indian soil
out of which hardly one or two like that of Araria surface once in a
blue moon. Since the poverty-stricken woman happened to be a
Muslim, the incident concerned mostly with Ummah on one hand
and on the other it represents the grimy picture of isolation, disinte-
gration, disassociation and poverty level amongst the Millat to such
an extent that a Muslim mother is compelled to sell her dear son for
Rs. 62 to have the two (in plain words one time) meal for her self and
other children. It is needless to say that present Indian Muslim soci-
ety has been divided into two sections out of one section (about
20%) is enjoying the life rather are comfortably and luxuriously
whereas remaining section is compelled to pull the life under the
shadow of poverty. Our sermons move around oneness
(Wahdaaniyat) but practically we are totally in disarray which has
made us directionless. It is said that the Ummah is like a human
body where slight pinch on any part is bound to cause effect on the
whole body but the communal frenzy in any part of India made to
think and feel something in favour of sufferers contrary. It is
observed that at the time of communal riots at Mumbai (1993) and
Gujarat (2002) and so many other places while Muslims were
butchered, murdered and victimised in different ways, Muslims at
other cities were busy in celebrating Eid, Urs and other festivals
without earing as to what was/is going on at other places. We have
a perfect system of Zakat and Baitulmaal which are meant to help
and serve the people like Shannu Khatoon but we have ourselves
have turned down the God gifted unmatched way a unacceptable
and unfit process for which our daughters are forced to sell their
sons to non-Muslims just for Rs. 62. It is the time that we realise the
importance of unity and integrity at National level, establish well
equipped communication system with each corner and its Muslim
population by introducing centralised leadership system for the
development and uptilment of the community.
Faheemuddin, Nagpur
Ban on SIMI - justice V.K. Sholi tribunal
The governments are playing commission and tribunal game to
oppress Muslims. Now latest justice Sholi tribunal confirmed the ban
on SIMI is legal (3 August 2012) congress led UPA flag bearer of
secularism instituted V.K. Sholi tribunal. Many times congress
extended the ban on SIMI which first banned by BJP in September
2001. But Delhi H.C. A. judge Geeta Mittal hearing SIMI ban case
ordered that the ban on SIMI was totally illegal and unconstitutional
because no concrete proof produced by security agencies. (5
August 2008) In each cases when Muslims are on target or subject-
ed to injustices, judiciary role becomes dubious like Godhra train
accident case, Muslim reservation and riots cases judiciary created
confusion which helps saffron brigade to wage a propaganda war
against Muslims.
S. Haque, Patna
Persian language
Apropos of Dr. S. S. Pauls scholarly article in MG of 1 August 2012,
besides being bewildered by the sweetness of Persian, I feel fasci-
nated by its briefness also. If someone knocks at a door, the one
who is inside the house may say only one word Keestee and the
one at the door only Manam -- how short and sweet.
S.A. Patel, Khanpur Deh
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012 23
REJOINDERS/OPINION/LETTERS P.O. Box 9701, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi 110025 Email: letters@milligazette.com
Read more letters on MG website
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24 The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2012
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